Everybody  '.r  Lonesome 


"  Both  wanted  to  toast,  and  they  took  turns." 
(Page  43) 


Everybody  9s  Lonesome 

A  True  Fairy  Story 


By 
CLARA  E.  LAUGHLIN 

Author   of  "Evolution    of  a  Girl's  Ideal" 
"  The  Lady  in  Gray"  etc. 


Illustrated  by 
A.  I.  KELLER 


New    York         Chicago         Toronto 

Fleming    H.     Re  veil    Company 

London         and         Edinburgh 


Copyright,   1910,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  80  Wabash  Avenue 
Toronto:  25  Richmond  Street,  W. 
London:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:  too  Princes  Street 


To 

Mabel  Taliaferro, 
The    Faery  Child 


2098078 


CONTENTS 

I.  DISAPPOINTED  IN  LIFE       ...  9 

II.  YOUR  OWN  is  WAITING    ...  22 

III.  FINDING  THE  FIRST  FAIRY          »          .  30 

IV.  BEING  KIND  TO  A  TIRED  MAN  .          .  40 

V.  GOING  TO  THE  PARTY       ...  49 

VI.  THE  "  LION  "  OF  THE  EVENING          .  56 

VII.  AT  CANDLE-LIGHTIN'  TIME       .         .  67 

VIII.  LEARNING  TO  BE  BRAVE  AND  SWEET     .  75 

IX.  TELLING  THE  SECRET  TO  MOTHER      .  81 

X.  THE  OLD  WORLD  AND  THE  KING        .  87 

XI.  A  MEETING  AND  A  PARTING       .         .  102 

XII.  AT  OCEAN'S  EDGE  .         .         .         .112 


[7] 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING 
PAGE 


"BOTH    WANTED    TO    TOAST,    AND    THEY    TOOK 

TURNS"        .  .          .          .          .    Title 

".  .  .  .  FOUND  HERSELF  LOOKING  INTO  EYES 
THAT  SMILED  AS  WITH  AN  OLD  FRIENDLI- 
NESS "  .  »  .  .  .  103 


Everybody  's  Lonesome 

i 

DISAPPOINTED  IN  LIFE 

MARY  ALICE  came  home  qui- 
etly from  the  party.     Most  of 
the   doors   in  the  house  were 
closed,  because  it  was  cold,  and  the  halls 
were   hard   to   heat.     Mary   Alice  knew 
exactly  what  she  should  see  and  hear  if 
she  opened  that  door  at  her  right  as  she 
entered   the   house,   and   went  into   the 
sitting-room.     There  was  a  soft-coal  fire 
in  the  small,  old-fashioned  grate  under 
the  old,  old-fashioned  white  marble  man- 
tel.     Dozing — always    dozing — on    the 
hearth-rug,   at    a    comfortable    distance 
[9] 


< 


Everybody  ' s  Lonesome 

from  the  fire,  was  Herod,  the  big  yellow 
cat.  In  the  centre  of  the  room,  under  the 
chandelier,  was  a  table,  with  a  cover  of 
her  mother's  fancy  working,  and  a  drop- 
light  with  a  green  shade.  By  the  unbe- 
coming light  of  this,  her  mother  was 
sewing.  What  day  was  this  ?  Tuesday  ! 
She  was  mending  stockings.  Mary  Alice 
could  see  it  all.  She  had  been  seeing  it 
for  twenty  years  during  which  nothing — 
it  seemed  to  her — had  changed,  except 
herself.  If  she  went  in  there  now,  her 
mother  would  ask  her  the  same  questions 
she  always  asked :  "  Did  you  have  a 
nice  time ? "  "  Who  was  there  ?  "  "Any- 
body have  on  anything  new  ?  "  "  What 
refreshments  did  they  serve  ?  " 

Mary  Alice  was  tired  of  it  all — heart- 
sick with  weariness  of  it — and  she  stole 
softly  past  that  closed  sitting-room  door 

and  up,  through  the  chilly  halls  where 
[10] 


Disappointed  in  Life 

she  could  see  her  own  breath,  to  her 
room. 

She  did  not  light  the  gas,  but  took  off 
in  the  dark  her  "good"  hat  and  her 
"best"  gloves  and  her  long  black  cloth 
coat  of  an  ugly  "store-bought"  cut, 
which  was  her  best  and  worst.  Then,  in 
an  abandon  of  grief  which  bespoke  real 
desperation  in  a  careful  girl  like  Mary 
Alice,  she  threw  herself  on  her  bed — 
without  taking  off  her  "good"  dress — and 
buried  her  head  in  a  pillow,  and  hated 
everything. 

It  is  hard  to  be  disappointed  in  love, 
but  after  all  it  is  a  rather  splendid  misery 
in  which  one  may  have  a  sense  of  kin- 
ship with  earth's  greatest  and  best ;  and 
it  has  its'  hopes,  its  consolations.  There 
is  often  the  hope  that  this  love  may  re- 
turn ;  and,  though  we  never  admit  it, 
there  is  always — deep  down — the  conso- 


Everybody  's  Lonesome 

lation  of  believing  that  another  and  a 
better  may  come. 

But  to  be  disappointed  in  the  love  of 
life  is  not  a  splendid  misery.  And  Mary 
Alice  was  disappointed  in  her  love  of  life. 
To  be  twenty,  and  not  to  believe  in  the 
fairies  of  Romance  ;  to  be  twenty  and,  in- 
stead of  the  rosy  dreams  you've  had,  to 
see  life  stretching  on  and  on  before  you, 
an  endless,  uninspired  humdrum  like 
mother's,  darning  stockings  by  the  sitting- 
room  fire — that  is  bitterness  indeed. 

Hardship  isn't  anything — while  you 
believe  in  life.  Stiff  toil  and  scant  fare 
are  nothing — while  you  expect  to  meet  at 
any  turning  the  Enchanter  with  your  for- 
tune in  his  hands.  But  to  be  twenty  and 
not  to  believe ! 

Mary  Alice  had  never  had  much,  ex- 
cept the  wonderful  heart  of  youth,  to 
feed  her  faith  with.  She  wasn't  pretty 

[12] 


Disappointed  in  Life 

and  she  wasn't  clever  and  she  had  no 
accomplishments.  Her  people  were 
"  plain  "  and  perpetually  "  pinched  "  in 
circumstance.  And  her  life,  in  this  small 
town  where  she  lived,  was  very  narrow. 

In  the  mornings,  Mary  Alice  helped  her 
mother  with  the  housework.  In  the  af- 
ternoons, after  the  midday  dinner  was 
cleared  away,  Mary  Alice  had  a  good 
deal  of  time  on  her  hands.  Sometimes 
she  sewed — made  new  clothes  or  remade 
old  ones  ;  sometimes  she  read.  Once  in 
a  while  she  took  some  fancy  work  and 
went  to  see  a  girl  friend,  or  a  girl  friend 
brought  some  fancy  work  and  came  to 
see  her.  Occasionally  she  and  another 
girl  went  for  a  walk.  Semi-occasionally 
there  was  a  church  social  or  a  sewing 
circle  luncheon,  or  somebody  gave  a 
party. 

Somebody  had  given  a  party  to-day, 
[13] 


Everybody  's  Lonesome 

and  Mary  Alice  had  gone  to  it  with  high 
hope  of  finding  it  "  interesting  "  and  had 
come  away  from  it  with  a  deep  despair 
of  ever  finding  in  life  that  which  would 
make  the  monotony  of  it  worth  while. 

Many  another  girl,  feeling  as  Mary 
Alice  did,  would  have  gone  away  from 
home  seeking  "  life  "  in  a  big  city.  But 
Mary  Alice,  besides  having  no  qualifica- 
tions for  earning  her  way  in  a  big  city, 
had  a  most  unhappy  shyness.  She  was 
literally  afraid  of  strangers,  and  never  got 
very  well  acquainted  even  with  persons 
she  had  associated  with  for  a  long  time. 

At  the  party  to-day — it  was  an  after- 
noon tea — Mary  Alice  had  been  more 
bitterly  conscious  than  ever  before  of  her 
lack  of  charms  and  the  bleak  prospect 
that  lack  entailed  upon  her.  For  the  tea 
was  given  for  a  girl  who  was  visiting  in 
town,  a  girl  of  a  sort  Mary  Alice  had  never 


Disappointed  in  Life 

seen  before.  She  was  pretty,  that  visit- 
ing girl,  and  she  was  sweet ;  she  had  a 
charm  that  was  irresistible;  she  seemed 
to  like  everybody,  and  there  was  no  mis- 
take about  everybody  liking  her.  Even 
the  town  girls  liked  her  and  were  not 
jealous.  Even  Mary  Alice  liked  her,  and 
was  not  afraid  of  her.  But  there  she  was 
— that  girl  1 — vital,  radiant,  an  example 
of  what  life  might  be,  at  twenty.  And 
Mary  Alice  came  away  hating  as  she  had 
never  done  before,  life  as  it  was  for  her 
and  as  it  promised  to  continue. 

Presently  she  withdrew  her  head  from 
the  pillow  and  lay  looking  into  the  dark 
where,  as  we  all  know,  the  things  that 
might  be,  that  should  have  been,  shape 
themselves  so  much  more  readily  than  in 
any  light.  And,  lying  there,  Mary  Alice 
wondered  if  there  were  any  fairy  power 
on  earth  that  could  make  of  her  a  being 
E'5] 


Everybody  *s  Lonesome 

half  so  sweet  as  that  girl  she  had  seen 
this  afternoon. 

Then  she  heard  her  mother  open  the 
sitting-room  door  and  call  her.  It  was 
time  to  get  their  simple  supper  ready. 

"  In  a  minute  1 "  she  called  back.  "  I'm 
changing  my  dress."  And  she  jerked  at 
the  hooks  of  her  blue  taffeta  "jumper 
dress  "  with  uncareful  haste  ;  bathed  her 
face  hi  cold  water  ;  put  on  her  dark  red 
serge  which  had  been  "  good  "  last  year  ; 
and  went  down-stairs  to  help  her  mother. 

She  could  see  it  all  as  she  went — all 
she  was  to  do.  There  was  the  thread- 
bare blanket  they  used  for  a  silence  cloth, 
and  the  table-cloth  with  the  red  stain  by 
Johnny's  place  where  he  had  spilled  cran- 
berry jelly  the  night  before  last,  when  the 
cloth  was  "  span  clean."  There  were  the 
places  to  set,  as  always,  with  the  same 

old  dishes  and  the  same  old  knives  and 
[16] 


Disappointed  in  Life 

forks  ;  and  with  the  mechanical  precision 
born  of  long  practice  she  would  rightly 
place,  without  half  looking  at  them,  the 
various  napkins  each  in  its  slightly  differ- 
ent wooden  ring.  The  utmost  variety 
that  she  could  hope  for  would  be  hot 
gingerbread  instead  of  the  last  of  Sun- 
day's layer-cake,  and  maybe  frizzled  beef, 
since  they  had  finished  Sunday's  roast  in 
a  meat  pie  this  noon. 

"  I  didn't  hear  you  come  in,"  said  her 
mother  as  Mary  Alice  opened  the  sitting- 
room  door,  "and  I  was  listening  for 
you." 

"  I  went  right  up-stairs  to  change  my 
things,"  said  Mary  Alice,  hoping  that 
would  end  the  matter. 

"  That's  what  I  knew  you  must  have 

done  when  it  got  to  be  six  o'clock  and  I 

didn't  hear  you.     I  could  hardly  wait  for 

you  to  come.    I've  such  a  surprise  for  you." 

['7} 


Everybody  'j  Lonesome 

Mary  Alice  could  hardly  believe  her 
ears.  "A  surprise?"  she  echoed,  in- 
credulously. 

"  Yes.  I  got  a  letter  this  afternoon 
from  your  dear  godmother." 

"  Oh  1"  Mary  Alice's  tone  said  plainly : 
Is  that  all  ?  She  had  her  own  opinion  of 
her  godmother,  whom  she  had  not  seen 
since  she  was  a  small  child,  and  it  was 
not  an  enthusiastic  one.  Her  name — 
which  she  hated — was  her  godmother's 
name.  And  aside  from  that,  all  she  had 
ever  got  from  her  godmother  was  an 
occasional  letter  and,  on  Christmas  and 
birthdays,  a  handkerchief  or  turnover 
collar  or  some  other  such  trifle  as  could 
come  in  an  envelope  from  Europe  where 
her  godmother  lived. 

Even  in  the  matter  of  a  godmother,  it 
seemed,  it  was  Mary  Alice's  luck  to  have 

one  without  any  of    the  fairy   powers. 
[18] 


Disappointed  in  Life 

For  although  Mary  Alice's  mother  had 
dearly  loved,  in  her  girlhood,  that  friend 
for  whom  she  had  called  her  first  baby, 
she  had  always  to  admit,  to  Mary  Alice's 
eager  questioning,  that  the  friend  was 
neither  beautiful  nor  rich  nor  gifted.  She 
was  a  "  spinster  person  "  and  years  ago 
some  well-to-do  friend  had  taken  her 
abroad  for  company.  And  there  she 
had  stayed ;  while  the  friend  of  her  girl- 
hood, whose  baby  was  called  for  her, 
heard  from  her  but  desultorily. 

"Your  godmother  has  come  back," 
said  Mary  Alice's  mother,  her  voice 
trembling  with  excitement ;  "  she's  in 
New  York.  And  she  wants  you  tb  come 
and  see  her." 

For  a  moment,  visions  swam  before 
Mary  Alice's  eyes.  Then,  "  How  kind 
of  her ! "  she  said,  bitterly  ;  and  turned 
away. 

[19] 


Everybody  *s  Lonesome 

Her  mother  understood.  "She's  sent 
a  check  ! "  she  cried,  waving  it. 

After  that,  until  Mary  Alice  went,  it 
was  nothing  but  talk  of  clothes  and 
other  ways  and  means.  Just  what  the 
present  circumstances  of  Godmother 
were,  they  could  not  even  conjecture ; 
but  they  were  probably  not  very  different 
than  before,  or  she  would  have  said  some- 
thing about  them.  And  the  check  she 
sent  covered  travelling  expenses  only. 
Nor  did  she  write:  Never  mind  about 
clothes ;  we  will  take  care  of  those  when 
she  gets  here. 

"  I  haven't  the  least  idea  what  kind  of 
a  time  you'll  have,"  Mary  Alice's  mother 
said,  "but  you  mustn't  expect  many 
parties  or  much  young  society.  Your 
godmother  has  been  abroad  so  long,  she 
can't  have  many  acquaintances  in  this 

[20] 


Disappointed  in 


country  now.  But  you'll  see  New  York 
—  the  crowds  and  the  shops  and  the 
great  hotels  and  the  places  of  historic 
interest.  And  even  if  you  don't  meet 
many  people,  you'll  probably  have  a 
very  interesting  time." 

"  I  don't  care  about  people,  anyway," 
returned  Mary  Alice. 

Her  mother  looked  distressed.  "I 
wouldn't  say  that,  if  I  were  you,"  she 
advised.  "  Because  you  want  to  care 
about  people  —  you  must!  Sights  are 
beguiling,  but  they're  never  satisfying. 
We  all  have  to  depend  on  people  for  our 
happiness  —  for  love." 

"  Then  I'll  never  be  happy,  I  guess," 
said  Mary  Alice. 

"I'm  afraid,  sometimes,  that  you've 
started  out  not  to  be,"  her  mother  an- 
swered, gravely,  "  but  we'll  hope  for  the 

best." 

[21] 


MARY  ALICE  dreaded  to  meet  her  god- 
mother. The  excitement  of  getting  away 
was  all  very  well.  But  once  she  was 
alone  in  the  Pullman,  and  the  friendly 
faces  on  the  station  platform  were  left 
behind,  she  -began  to  think  apprehen- 
sively of  what  she  was  going  to.  She 
was  sure  to  feel  "  strange  "  with  her  god- 
mother, and  there  was  at  least  a  pretty 
good  chance  that  she  might  actually  dis- 
like her.  Also,  there  was  every  reason 
to  doubt  if  her  godmother  would  like 
Mary  Alice.  Mary  Alice  had  several 
times  met  persons  who  had  "been  to 
Europe,"  and  she  had  never  liked  them  ; 
their  conversation  was  all  about  things 

[22] 


Your  Own  is  Waiting 

she  did  not  know,  and  larded  with 
phrases  she  could  not  understand. 
Those  years  in  Europe  made  her  doubly 
dread  her  godmother. 

But  the  minute  she  saw  her  godmother 
at  the  Grand  Central  Station,  she  liked 
her;  and  before  they  had  got  home,  in 
the  Fourth  Avenue  car,  she  liked  her 
very  much  ;  and  when  she  lay  dozing  off 
to  sleep,  that  first  night  in  New  York, 
she  was  blissfully  conscious  that  she  loved 
her  godmother. 

Godmother  lived  in  an  apartment  in 
Gramercy  Park.  It  was  an  old-fashioned 
apartment,  occupying  one  floor  of  what 
had  once  been  a  handsome  dwelling  of 
the  tall  "  chimney  "  type  common  in  New 
York.  All  around  the  Square  were  the 
homes  of  notable  persons,  and  clubs  fre- 
quented by  famous  men.  Godmother 
was  to  point  these  out  in  the  morning; 
[23] 


Everybody  's  Lonesome 

but  this  evening,  before  dinner  was 
served,  while  she  and  Mary  Alice  were 
standing  in  the  window  of  her  charming 
drawing-room,  she  showed  which  was 
The  Players,  and  indicated  the  windows 
of  the  room  where  Edwin  Booth  died. 
It  seemed  that  she  had  known  Edwin 
Booth  quite  well  when  she  was  a  girl, 
and  had  some  beautiful  stories  of  his 
kindness  and  his  shyness  to  tell. 

Mary  Alice  was  surprised  and  de- 
lighted, and  she  looked  over  at  the  win- 
dows with  eager,  shining  eyes.  "He 
must  have  been  wonderful  to  know,"  she 
said.  "  Do  you  suppose  there  are  many 
other  great  people  like  that  ?  " 

"A  good  many,  I  should  say,"  her 
godmother  replied.  And  as  they  sat  at 
dinner,  served  by  Godmother's  neat  maid- 
of-all-work,  it  "kind  o'  came  out,"  as 
Mary  Alice  would  have  said,  how  many 
[24] 


Your  Own  is   Waiting 

delightful  people  Godmother  had  counted 
among  her  friends. 

"  You've  had  a  beautiful  time,  all  your 
life,  haven't  you?"  Mary  Alice  com- 
mented admiringly,  when  they  were  back 
in  the  cozy  drawing-room  and  Godmother 
was  serving  coffee  from  the  copper  per- 
colator. 

"  Not  all  my  life,  but  most  of  it — yes," 
said  Godmother.  "  It  took  me  some  time 
to  find  the  talisman,  the  charm,  the  secret 
— or  whatever  you  want  to  call  it — of 
having  a  happy  time." 

"  But  you  found  it  ?  " 

Godmother  flushed  as  if  she  were  a 
little  bit  embarrassed.  "  Well,"  she  said, 
"  I  found  one — at  last — that  worked,  for 
me." 

"  I  wish  I  could  find  one,"  sighed  Mary 
Alice,  wistfully. 

"  I'm  going  to  try  to  give  you  mine," 
[25] 


said  Godmother,  "or  at  least  to  share  it 
with  you.  And  all  I  ask  of  you  is,  that 
if  it  '  works '  for  you,  you'll  pass  it  on  to 
some  one  else." 

"  Oh,  I  will ! "  cried  Mary  Alice.  "What 
is  it?" 

"  Wait  a  minute  1  I  have  to  tell  you 
about  me,  first — so  you'll  understand." 

"  Please  do  ! "  urged  Mary  Alice.  "  I'd 
love  to  hear." 

"Well,  you  see,  when  the  invitations 
to  my  christening  were  sent  out,  my  folks 
forgot  the  fairies,  I  guess.  And  as  I  grew 
up,  I  found  that  I  hadn't  been  gifted  with 
wealth  or  beauty  or  talents  or  charm " 

"  I  know,"  Mary  Alice  broke  in. 

Godmother  looked  surprised. 

"  I  mean,  I  know  how  that  feels,"  Mary 
Alice  explained. 

"  Then  you  know  I  was  pretty  unhappy 

until — something    happened.     I    met    a 

[26] 


Your  Own  is  Waiting 

charming  woman,  once,  who  was  so 
sweet  and  sympathetic  that  my  heart 
just  opened  to  her  as  flowers  to  sun- 
shine ;  and  I  told  her  how  I  felt.  '  Well, 
that  was  an  oversight  1 '  she  said,  4  but 
you  know  what  to  do  about  it,  don't 
you  ? '  I  said  I  didn't.  '  Why  1 '  she  said, 
'the  fairies  had  their  gifts  all  ready  to 
bring,  and  when  they  were  not  invited 
to  the  party,  what  would  they  naturally 
do  ? '  '  Give  them  to  some  one  else  ! '  I 
cried.  I  shall  never  forget  how  reproach- 
fully she  looked  at  me.  '  That  is  a  purely 
human  trick ! '  she  said ;  '  fairies  are  never 
guilty  of  it.  When  they  have  something 
for  you,  they  keep  it  for  you  till  you  get 
it.  If  they  were  not  asked  to  your  party, 
it's  your  business  to  hunt  them  out  and 
get  your  gifts.  Somewhere  in  the  world 
your  own  is  waiting  for  you.'  That  was 
a  magic  thought :  Somewhere  in  the  world 
[27] 


Everybody  ' s  Lonesome 

your  own  is  waiting  for  you.  I  couldn't 
get  away  from  it ;  it  filled  my  mind, 
waking  and  asleep.  And  I  set  out  to 
find  if  it  was  true." 

"And  wash?" 

"  Well,  it  must  have  been.  For  I've 
found  some  of  my  own,  surely,  and  I  be- 
lieve I  shall  find  more.  And  oh !  the 
joy  it  is  to  look  and  look,  believing  that 
you  will  surely  find.  I  haven't  found 
wealth,  nor  beauty,  nor  accomplishments 
— perhaps  I  didn't  look  in  the  right 
places  for  any  of  those — but  I've  found 
something  I  wouldn't  trade  for  all  the 
others.  It  is  all  I  have  to  bequeath  you, 
dear.  But  the  beautiful  part  of  this  be- 
quest is,  I  don't  have  to  die  to  enrich 
you  with  it,  nor  do  I  have  to  impoverish 
myself  to  give  it  away.  I  just  whisper 
something  in  your  ear — and  then  you  go 

and  see  if  it  isn't  so." 
[28] 


Your  Own  is   Waiting 

"Whisper  it  now,  please,"  begged 
Mary  Alice,  going  over  to  her  god- 
mother and  putting  her  ear  close. 

"  Oh,  no,"  said  Godmother,  kissing 
Mary  Alice's  ear,  "  this  isn't  the  time  at 
all.  And  it's  fatal  to  tell  till  the  right 
time  comes." 

And  no  teasing  would  avail  to  make 
her  change  her  mind. 


[29] 


Ill 

FINDING  THE  FIRST  FAIRY 

THE  next  few  days  were  spent  in  sight- 
seeing; and  Mary  Alice  would  never 
have  believed  there  could  be  any  one  so 
enchanting  to  see  sights  with  as  God- 
mother. They  looked  in  all  the  wonder- 
ful shop- windows  and  "  chose  "  what 
they  would  take  from  each  if  a  fairy  sud- 
denly invited  them  to  take  their  choice. 
No  fairy  did ;  but  they  hardly  noticed  that. 

Then  they'd  go  and  "  poke  "  in  rem- 
nant boxes  on  the  ends  of  counters  in  the 
big  department  stores,  and  unearth  bits 
of  trimming  and  of  lace  with  which 
Godmother,  who  was  clever  with  her 
needle  and  "  full  of  ideas,"  showed  Mary 
Alice  how  to  put  quite  transforming 
touches  on  her  clothes. 
[30] 


Finding  the  First  Fairy 

They  visited  art  galleries,  and  God- 
mother knew  things  about  the  pictures 
that  made  them  all  fascinating.  Instead 
of  saying,  "  Interesting  composition, 
that  1 "  or  "  This  man  was  celebrated  for 
his  chiaroscuro,"  Godmother  was  full  of 
human  stories  of  the  struggles  of  the 
painters  and  their  faithfulness  to  ideals  ; 
and  she  could  stand  in  front  of  a  canvas 
by  almost  any  master,  and  talk  to  Mary 
Alice  about  the  painter  and  the  condi- 
tions of  his  life  and  love  and  longing 
when  he  painted  this  picture,  in  a  way 
that  made  Mary  Alice  feel  as  if  she'd 
like  to  shake  the  people  who  walked  by 
with  only  an  uninterested  glance ;  as  if 
she'd  like  to  bring  them  back  and  prod 
them  into  life,  and  cry,  "  Don't  you  see  ? 
How  can  you  pass  so  carelessly  what 
cost  so  much  in  toil  and  tears  ?  " 

Godmother  had  that  kind  of  a  view- 


Everybody  's  Lonesome 

point  about  everything,  it  seemed. 
When  they  went  to  the  theatre,  she 
could  tell  Mary  Alice — before  the  curtain 
went  up,  and  between  the  acts — such 
things  about  the  actors  and  the  play- 
wright and  the  manager,  as  made  the 
play  trebly  interesting. 

On  the  East  Side  they  visited  some  of 
the  Settlements  and  "  prowled  "  (as  God- 
mother loved  to  call  it)  around  the  teem- 
ing slums ;  and  Godmpther  knew  such 
touching  stories  of  the  Old  World  condi- 
tions from  which  these  myriads  of  for- 
eign folk  had  escaped,  and  of  the  pathos 
of  their  trust  in  the  New  World,  as  kept 
Mary  Alice's  eyes  bright  and  wet  almost 
every  minute. 

One    beautiful   sunny   afternoon   they 

rode  up  on  top  of  a  Fifth  Avenue  motor 

'bus    to    Qoth    Street,    and    Godmother 

pointed  out  the  houses  of  many  multi- 

[32] 


Finding  the  First  Fairy 

millionaires.  She  knew  things  about 
many  of  them,  too — sweet,  human, 
heart-touching  things  about  their  disap- 
pointments and  unsatisfied  yearnings — 
which  made  one  feel  rather  sorry  for 
them  than  envious  of  their  splendours. 

Thus  the  days  passed,  and  Mary  Alice 
was  so  happy  that — learning  from  God- 
mother some  of  her  pretty  ways — she 
would  go  closer  to  that  dear  lady,  every 
once  in  a  while,  and  say :  "  Pinch  me, 
please — and  see  if  I'm  awake;  if  it's 
really  true."  And  Godmother  always 
pinched  her,  gravely,  and  appeared  to 
be  much  relieved  when  Mary  Alice  cried 
"  Ouch  !  lam!  " 

They  didn't  see  anybody,  except  "  from 
a  distance  "  as  they  said,  for  fully  a  week  ; 
they  were  so  busy  seeing  sights  and 
getting  acquainted.  Every  night  when 
Godmother  came  to  tuck  Mary  Alice  in, 
[33] 


they  had  the  dearest  talks  of  all.  And 
every  night  Mary  Alice  begged  to  be 
told  the  Secret.  But,  "Oh,  dear  no  !  not 
yet  1 "  Godmother  would  always  say. 

One  night,  however,  she  said  :  "  Well, 
if  I'm  not  almost  forgetting  to  tell  you  ! " 

Mary  Alice  jumped  ;  that  sounded  like 
the  Secret.  But  it  wasn't — although  it 
was  "  leading  up  to  it." 

"Tell  me  what?"  she  cried,  excitedly. 

"Why,  to-day  1  saw  one  of  your 
fairies." 

"My  what?" 

"Your  fairies  that  you  said  were  left 
out  of  your  christening  party." 

"You  did!     Where?" 

"I'll  tell  you  that  presently.  But  it 
seems,  from  what  this  fairy  said,  that 
there  are  a  great  number  of  your  fairies 
with  gifts  for  you,  all  waiting  quite  im- 
patiently to  be  found.  She  says  that  it 
[34] 


Finding  the  First  Fairy 

is  considered  quite  'ordinary'  now,  to 
send  all  of  a  great  gift  by  one  fairy — yes, 
and  not  at  ail  safe.  For  if  that  one  fairy 
should  miss  you  and  you  should  not  find 
her,  you'd  be  left  terribly  unprovided  for, 
you  see.  So  the  gift  is  usually  divided 
into  many  parts,  and  a  different  fairy  has 
each  part.  Now,  the  gift  of  beauty,  for 
instance ;  she  is  one  of  the  fairies  who 
has  that  gift  for  you." 

Mary  Alice's  eyes  opened  wide.  Her 
belief  in  this  wonderful  Godmother  was 
such  that  she  was  almost  prepared  to  see 
Godmother  wave  a  wand  and  command 
her  to  become  beautiful — and  then,  on 
looking  into  a  mirror,  to  find  that  she 
was  so.  "What  did  she  say?"  she 
managed  at  last  to  gasp. 

"  She  said  :  '  Has  she  pretty  hair  ? ' 
And  I  answered, '  Yes.'  '  Then,'  the  fairy 
went  on,  '  the  one  who  had  that  gift  must 
[35] 


Everybody  ' s  Lonesome 

have  got  to  the  christening,  somehow. 
Maybe  the  mother  wished  for  her — and 
that  is  as  good  as  an  invitation.'  " 

"  She  did  !  "  cried  Mary  Alice.  "  She's 
always  said  she  watched  me  so  anxiously 
when  I  was  a  wee  baby,  hoping  I'd  have 
pretty  hair." 

"  Well,  that's  evidently  how  that  fairy 
got  to  you.  But  it  seems  there  were  two. 
This  one  I  saw  to-day  says  there  are  two 
beauties  in  'most  everything — but  espe- 
cially in  hair — one  is  in  the  thing  itself 
and  the  other  is  in  knowing  what  to  do 
with  it.  It  seems  she  is  the  '  what  to  do ' 
fairy." 

And  so  she  proved  to  be.  For,  when 
she  came  to  luncheon  next  day,  she  told 
Mary  Alice  how  she  had  always  been  "a 
bit  daft  about  hair."  "When  I  played 
with  my  dolls,"  she  said,  "  I  always  cared 
much  more  for  combing  their  hair  and 
[36] 


Finding  the  First  Fairy 

doing  it  up  with  mother's  '  invisible'  pins, 
than  for  dressing  them.  And  it  used  to 
be  the  supreme  reward  for  goodness  when 
I  could  take  down  my  mother's  beautiful 
hair  and  play  with  it  for  half  an  hour. 
I'm  always  wanting  to  play  with  lovely 
hair.  And  when  I  saw  yours  at  the 
theatre  the  other  evening,  I  couldn't  rest 
until  I'd  asked  your  godmother  if  she 
thought  you'd  let  me  play  with  it." 

So  after  luncheon  they  went  into  Mary 
Alice's  room  and  wouldn't  let  Godmother 
go  with  them.  "  Not  at  all ! "  said  the 
"  what  to  do  fairy,"  "  you  are  the  select 
audience.  You  go  into  the  drawing- 
room  and  '  compose  yourself.'  When 
we're  ready  for  you,  we'll  come  out." 

Then,  behind  locked  doors,  with  much 
delightful  nonsense  and  excitement,  she 
divested  Mary  Alice's  head  of  sundry  aw- 
ful rats  and  puffs,  combed  out  the  bunches 
[37] 


which  Mary  Alice  wore  in  her  really  lovely 
hair,  brushed  smooth  the  traces  of  the 
curling  iron,  and  then  made  Mary  Alice 
shut  her  eyes  and  "  hope  to  die "  if  she 
"  peeked  once." 

When  permission  to  "  peek  "  was  given, 
Mary  Alice  didn't  know  herself. 

"  There ! "  said  the  fairy,  when  the  ex- 
citement of  Godmother's  delight  had  sub- 
sided, "I've  always  said  that  the  three 
most  important  beauty  fairies  for  a  girl  to 
find  are  the  how-to-stand  fairy,  the  how- 
to-dress  fairy,  and  the  what-to-do-with- 
your-hair  fairy.  Anybody  can  find  them 
all ;  and  nobody  who  has  found  them  all 
needs  to  feel  very  bad  if  she  can't  find 
some  of  the  others  who  have  her  chris- 
tening gifts." 

Mary  Alice  began  looking  for  the  oth- 
ers, right  away.  But  even  one  fairy  had 
transformed  her,  outside,  from  an  ordi- 
[38] 


Finding  the  First  Fairy 

nary-looking  girl  into  a  young  woman 
with  a  look  of  remarkable  distinction ; 
just  as  Godmother  had  transformed  her, 
within,  from  a  girl  with  a  dreary  outlook 
on  life,  to  one  who  found  that 

"  The  world  is  so  full  of  a  number  of  things, 
I'm  sure  we  should  all  be  as  happy  as  kings." 

"Is  this  the  Secret?"  she  asked  God- 
mother, that  night. 

"  Oh,  dear,  no  ! "  laughed  Godmother, 
"  only  the  first  little  step  towards  realiz- 
ing it." 


[39] 


IV 

BEING  KIND  TO  A  TIRED  MAN 

ONE  day  when  Mary  Alice  had  been  in 
New  York  nearly  two  weeks — and  had 
found  several  fairies — Godmother  was 
obliged  to  go  out,  in  the  afternoon,  to 
some  sort  of  a  committee  meeting  which 
would  have  been  quite  uninteresting  to  an 
outsider.  But  Mary  Alice  had  some  sew- 
ing to  do — something  like  taking  the 
ugly,  ruffly  sleeves  of  cheap  white  lace 
out  of  her  blue  taffeta  dress  and  substi- 
tuting plain  dark  ones  of  net  dyed  to 
match  the  silk  ;  and  she  was  glad  to  stay 
at  home. 

"  If  an  elderly  gentleman  comes  in  to 
call  on  me,  late  in  the  afternoon  but  be- 
fore I  get  back  home,"  said  Godmother, 
[40] 


Being  Kind  to  a  Tired  Man 

in  departing,  "ask  him  in  and  be  nice 
to  him.  He's  a  lonely  body,  and  he'll 
probably  be  tired.  He  works  very 
hard." 

Mary  Alice  promised,  and  went  happily 
to  work  on  the  new  sleeves  which  were 
to  give  her  arms  and  shoulders  something 
of  an  exquisite  outline,  in  keeping  with 
the  fairy  way  of  doing  her  hair,  which 
Godmother  had  taught  her  to  admire  in 
a  beautiful  marble  in  the  Metropolitan 
Museum. 

About  five  o'clock,  when  Godmother's 
neat  little  maid  had  just  lighted  the  lamps 
in  the  pretty  drawing-room  and  replen- 
ished the  open  fire  which  was  one  of  the 
great  compensations  for  the  many  draw- 
backs of  living  in  an  old-fashioned  house, 
the  gentleman  Godmother  had  expected 
called. 

Mary  Alice  went  in  to  see  him,  and  ex- 


Everybody  ' s  Lonesome 

plained  who  she  was.  He  said  he  had 
heard  about  her  and  was  glad  to  make 
her  acquaintance. 

He  seemed  quite  tired,  and  Mary  Alice 
asked  him  if  he  had  been  working  hard 
that  day. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  "  very  hard." 

"  Wouldn't  you  like  a  cup  of  tea  ?  "  she 
asked.  And  he  said  he  would. 

When  the  tea  came,  he  seemed  to  en- 
joy it  so  much  that  Mary  Alice  really 
believed  he  was  hungry.  Indeed,  he 
admitted  that  he  was.  "  I  haven't  had 
any  luncheon,"  he  said. 

Mary  Alice's  heart  was  touched;  she 
forgot  that  the  man  was  strange,  and 
remembered  only  that  he  was  tired  and 
hungry. 

The  little  maid  brought  thin  slices  of 
bread  and  butter  with  the  tea.  Mary 
Alice  felt  they  must  seem  absurd  to  a 
[42] 


Being  Kind  to  a  Tired  Man 

hungry  man.     "  I  know  what's  lots  nicer 
with  tea,"  she  said. 

"What?"  he  asked,  interestedly 
"  Toast  and  marmalade,"  she  answered. 
"I'm  going  to  get  some."  And  she 
went  to  the  kitchen,  cut  a  plateful  of 
toasting  slices  and  brought  them  back 
with  a  long  toasting  fork  and  a  jar  of 
orange  marmalade. 

"  At  home,"  she  said,  "  we  often  make 
the  toast  for  supper  at  the  sitting-room 
fire,  and  it's  much  nicer  than  '  gas  range 
toast.' " 

"  I  know  it  is,"  he  said  ;  "  let's  do  it." 
So  they  squatted  on  the  rug  in  front  of 
the  open  fire.     Both  wanted  to  toast,  and 
they  took  turns. 

"  I  don't  get  to  do  anything  like  this 
very  often — only  when  I  come  here,"  he 
said,  apologizing  for  accepting  his  turn 
when  it  came. 

[43] 


Everybody  *s  Lonesome 

"  Don't  you  live  at  home  ? "  asked 
Mary  Alice. 

"  Well,  no,"  he  answered,  "  I'd  hardly 
call  what  I  do  '  living  at  home.'  " 

There  was  something  about  the  way 
he  said  it  that  made  Mary  Alice  feel 
sorry  for  him ;  but  she  didn't  like  to  ask 
any  more  questions. 

They  had  a  delightful  time.  Mary 
Alice  had  never  met  a  man  she  enjoyed 
so  much.  He  liked  to  "  play  "  as  much 
as  Godmother  did,  and  they  talked  most 
confidentially  about  their  likes  and  dis- 
likes, many  of  which  seemed  to  be 
mutual.  Mary  Alice  admitted  to  him 
how  she  disliked  to  meet  strangers,  and 
he  admitted  to  her  that  he  felt  the  very 
same  way. 

Godmother  tarried  and  tarried,  and 
at  six  o'clock  the  gentleman  said  he 
must  go. 

[44] 


Being  Kind  to  a  Tired  Man 

"  Oh,  dear ! "  sighed  Mary  Alice.  "  I'm 
sorry!  I'm  having  such  a  nice  time." 

"  So  am  I,"  he  echoed  gallantly,  "  but 
I'm  hoping  you  will  ask  me  again." 

"  Indeed  I  will ! "  she  cried.  "  We 
seem  to — to  get  on  together  beautifully." 

"We  do,"  he  agreed,  "and  if  it's  a 
rare  experience  for  you,  I  don't  mind 
telling  you  it  is  for  me  too." 

He  couldn't  have  been  gone  more 
than  ten  minutes  when  Godmother 
came  in. 

"That  gentleman  called,"  Mary  Alice 
told  her.  "  He's  just  gone.  We  had  a 
lovely  time." 

"  I  know,"  said  Godmother,  "  I  met 
him  down-stairs  and  we've  been  chat- 
ting. He  says  he  doesn't  know  when 
he's  spent  a  pleasanter  hour." 

"  Poor  man  !  "  murmured  Mary  Alice, 
"  he  seems  to  be  a  lonely  body." 
[45] 


Everybody  ' s  Lonesome 

"  He  is,"  said  Godmother.  "  He  likes 
to  come  in  here,  once  in  a  while,  for  a 
cup  of  tea  and  an  hour's  chat.  And  I'm 
always  glad  to  have  him." 

"  I  should  think  so  ! "  agreed  Mary 
Alice.  "  He  ate  nearly  a  whole  plate  of 
toast." 

Godmother  laughed  so  heartily  that 
Mary  Alice  was  a  little  mystified.  She 
didn't  see  the  joke  in  being  hungry. 
She  didn't  even  see  it  when  Godmother 
told  her  who  the  man  was. 

"  Not  really  ? "  gasped  Mary  Alice. 
Godmother  nodded.  "  Why,  he  told  me 

himself 1 "  Mary  Alice  began  ;  and 

then  stopped  to  put  two  and  two  to- 
gether. It  was  all  very  astounding,  but 
there  was  no  reason  why  what  he  had 
told  her  and  what  Godmother  said  might 
not  both  be  true. 

"  If  I  had  known  !  "  she  said,  sinking 
[46] 


Being  Kind  to  a  Tired  Man 

down,  weak  in  the  knees,  into  the  nearest 
chair. 

"  That  was  what  gave  him  his  happy 
hour,"  said  Godmother.  "  You  didn't 
know !  It  is  so  hard  for  him  to  get 
away  from  people  who  know — to  find 
people  who  are  able  to  forget.  That's 
why  he  likes  to  come  here ;  I  try  to  help 
him  forget,  for  an  hour,  once  in  a  while, 
at  '  candle-lightin'  time.' " 

"  I  see,"  murmured  Mary  Alice. 

The  man  was  one  of  those  great  world- 
powers  of  finance  whose  transactions 
filled  columns  of  the  newspapers  and 
were  familiar  to  almost  every  school 
child. 

That  night  when  Godmother  was  tuck- 
ing Mary  Alice  in,  they  had  a  long,  long 
talk  about  the  caller  of  the  afternoon  and 
about  some  other  people  Godmother 

[47] 


Everybody  ' s  Lonesome 

knew,  and  about  how  sad  a  thing  it  is  to 
take  for  granted  about  any  person  cer- 
tain qualities  we  think  must  go  with  his 
estate. 

"  And  now,"  said  Godmother,  "  I'm 
going  to  tell  you  the  Secret." 

And  she  did.  Then  turned  out  the 
light,  kissed  Mary  Alice  one  more  time, 
and  left  her  to  think  about  it. 


[48] 


GOING  TO  THE  PARTY 

"Now,"  said  Godmother,  the  very 
next  morning  after  she  had  told  Mary 
Alice  the  Secret,  "  to  see  how  it  works  ! 
This  evening  I  am  going  to  take  you 
to  a  most  delightful  place." 

"  What  kind  of  a  place  V"  Mary  Alice 
begged  to  know.  Already,  despite  the 
Secret,  she  was  feeling  fearful. 

Godmother  squeezed  Mary  Alice's 
hand  sympathetically  ;  and  then,  because 
that  was  not  enough,  she  dropped  a  brief 
kiss  on  Mary  Alice's  anxious  young  fore- 
head. "  I  know  how  you  feel,  dear,"  she 
whispered.  "  All  of  us,  I  guess,  have 
fairy  charms  that  we're  afraid  to  use. 
Others  have  used  them,  we  know,  and 
[49] 


Everybody  's  Lonesome 

found  them  miraculous.  But  somehow, 
we're  afraid.  I'm  all  undecided  in  my 
mind  whether  to  tell  you  about  this  place 
we're  going  to,  or  not  to  tell  you  about 
it.  I  want  to  do  what  is  easiest  for  you. 
Now,  you  think !  It  probably  won't  be 
a  very  large  assembly.  These  dear  peo- 
ple, who  have  many  friends,  are  at  home 
on  Friday  evenings.  Sometimes  a  large 
number  call,  sometimes  only  a  few.  And 
in  New  York,  you  know,  people  are  not 
'  introduced  round  '  ;  you  just  meet  such 
of  your  fellow  guests  as  happen  to  '  come 
your  way,'  so  to  speak.  That  is,  if  there 

9 

are  many.  We'll  go  down  and  call 
this  evening — take  our  chance  of  few  or 
many,  and  try  out  our  Secret.  And  I'll 
do  just  as  you  think  you'd  like  best ;  I'll 
tell  you  about  the  people  we're  going  to 
see  and  try  to  guess  as  well  as  I  can  who 
else  may  be  there.  Or  I  won't  tell  you 
[50] 


Going  to  the  Party 

anything  at  all — just  leave  you  to  re- 
member that  '  folks  is  folks/  and  to  find 
out  the  rest  for  yourself.  You  needn't 
decide  now.  Take  all  day  to  think 
about  it,  if  you  like." 

"  Oh,  dear ! "  cried  Mary  Alice,  "  I'm 
all  in  a  flutter.  I  don't  believe  I'll  ever 
be  able  to  decide,  but  I'll  think  hard  all 
day.  And  now  tell  me  what  I  am  to 
wear." 

She  went  to  her  room  and  got  her 
dark  blue  taffeta  and  showed  the  prog- 
ress of  yesterday  with  the  new  dark  net 
sleeves  to  replace  the  ugly  ruffly  white 
lace  ones. 

"  That's  going  to  be  fine ! "  approved 
Godmother.  "Now,  this  morning  I  am 
going  to  help  you  make  the  new  yoke 
and  collar ;  and  then  " — she  squinted  up 
her  eyes  and  began  looking  as  if  she 
were  studying  a  picture  the  way  so  many 


Everybody  ' s  Lonesome 

picture-lovers  like  to  do,  through  only  a 
narrow  slit  of  vision  which  sharpens  per- 
spective and  intensifies  detail — "I  think 
we'll  go  shopping.  Yesterday,  when  I 
was  hurrying  past  and  hadn't  time  to 
stop  for  longer  than  a  peek,  I  saw  in 
a  Broadway  shop- window  some  short 
strings  of  pink  imitation  coral  of  the 
most  adorable  colour,  for — what  do  you 
think  ?  Twenty-five  cents  a  string !  I've 
a  picture  of  you  in  my  mind,  with  your 
dark  blue  dress  and  one  of  those  coral 
strings  about  your  throat." 

Godmother's  picture  looked  very  sweet 
indeed  when  she  came  out  to  dinner  that 
evening.  It  was  astonishing  how  many 
of  her  fairies  Mary  Alice  had  found  in 
two  short  weeks  !  The  lovely  lines  of  her 
shoulders,  which  she  had  never  known 
were  the  chief  of  all  the  "  lines  of  beauty," 
were  no  longer  disfigured  by  stiff,  out- 
[52] 


Going  to  the  Party 

standing  bretelles  and  ruffled-lace  sleeves, 
but  revealed  in  all  their  delicate  charm 
by  the  close-fitting  plain  dark  net.  And 
above  them  rose  the  head  of  such  unsus- 
pected loveliness  of  contour,  which  rats 
and  puffs  and  pompadour  had  once  de- 
formed grotesquely,  but  which  the  won- 
derful new  hair-dressing  accentuated  in  a 
transfiguring  degree.  The  poise  of  Mary 
Alice's  head,  the  carriage  of  her  shoul- 
ders, were  fine.  But  she  had  never  known, 
before,  that  those  were  big  points  of 
beauty.  So  she  did  look  lovely,  with  the 
tiny  touch  of  coral  at  her  throat,  the  pink 
flush  in  her  cheeks,  and  the  sparkle  of 
excitement  in  her  eyes.  It  was  her  first 
"  party  "  in  New  York,  and  she  and  God- 
mother had  had  the  most  delicious  day 
getting  ready  for  it.  Mary  Alice  couldn't 
really  believe  that  all  they  did  was  to  fix 
over  her  blue  "jumper  dress"  and  invest 
[53] 


Everybody  ' s  Lonesome 

twenty-five  cents  in  pink  beads.  But  it 
seemed  that  when  you  were  with  a  per- 
son like  Godmother,  what  you  actually 
did  was  magnified  a  thousandfold  by  the 
enchanting  way  you  did  it.  Mary  Alice 
was  beginning  to  see  that  a  fairy  wand 
which  can  turn  a  pumpkin  into  a  gold 
coach  is  not  exceeded  in  possibilities  by 
a  fairy  mind  which  can  turn  any  ordi- 
nary, commonplace,  matter-of-fact  thing 
into  a  delightful  "  experience." 

But  something  had  happened  during 
the  afternoon  which  decided  what  to  do 
about  the  party.  They  were  walking  west 
in  Thirty-Third  Street,  past  the  Waldorf, 
when  a  lady  came  out  to  get  into  her 
auto.  Godmother  greeted  her  delight- 
edly and  introduced  Mary  Alice.  But 
the  lady's  name  overpowered  Mary  Alice 
and  completely  tied  her  tongue  during 
the  moment's  chat. 

[54] 


Going  to  the  Party 

"I  used  to  see  her  a  great  deal,  in 
Dresden,"  said  Godmother  when  they 
had  gone  on  their  way,  "and  she's  a 
dear.  We  must  go  and  see  her  as  she 
asked  us  to,  and  have  her  down  to 
see  us."  Godmother  spoke  as  if  a  very 
celebrated  prima  donna  at  the  Metro- 
politan Opera  were  no  different  from  any 
one  else  one  might  happen  to  know. 
Mary  Alice  couldn't  get  used  to  it. 

"  I — I  guess  I  manage  better  when  I 
don't  know  so  much,"  she  said,  smiling 
rather  wofully  and  remembering  the  man 
of  many  millions  to  whom  she  had  been 
"nice"  because  she  thought  he  was 
homeless  and  hungry. 

So  to  the  "  party"  they  went  and  never 
an  inkling  had  Mary  Alice  where  it  was 
to  be  or  whether  she  was  to  see  more 
captains  of  finance  or  more  nightingales 
of  song,  "or  what." 

[55] 


THE  house  they  entered  was  not  at 
all  pretentious.  It  was  an  old-fashioned 
house  in  that  older  part  of  New  York  in 
which  Godmother  herself  lived— only  fur- 
ther south.  But  it  was  a  remodelled 
house;  the  old,  high  "stoop"  had  been 
taken  away,  and  one  entered,  from  the 
street  level,  what  had  once  been  a  base- 
ment dining-room  but  was  now  a  kind  of 
reception  hall.  Here  they  left  their  wraps 
in  charge  of  a  well-bred  maid  whom  God- 
mother called  by  name  and  seemed  to 
know.  And  then  they  went  up-stairs. 
Mary  Alice  was  "all  panicky  inside," 
but  she  kept  trying  to  remember  the 
Secret 

Their  hostess  was  a  middle-aged  lady, 
[561 


The  "Lion"  of  the  Evening 

very  plain  but  motherly-looking.  She 
wore  her  hair  combed  in  a  way  that  would 
have  been  considered  "  terribly  old-fash- 
ioned "  in  Mary  Alice's  home  town,  and 
she  had  on  several  large  cameos  very  like 
some  Mary  Alice's  mother  had  and 
scorned  to  wear. 

Mary  Alice  was  reasonably  sure  this 
lady  was  not  "  a  millionairess  or  anything 
like  that,"  and  she  didn't  think  she  was 
another  prima  donna.  The  lady's  name 
meant  nothing  to  her. 

"  Well, "  their  hostess  said  as  God- 
mother greeted  her,  "  now  the  party  can 
begin — here's  Mary  Alice!  Two  Mary 
Alices ! "  she  added  as  she  caught  sight 
of  the  second  one.  "  Who  says  this  isn't 
going  to  be  a  real  party?" 

Evidently  they  liked  Godmother  in  this 
house  ;  and  evidently  they  were  prepared 
to  like  Mary  Alice.  Then,  before  she  had 
[57] 


Everybody  9s  Lonesome 

time  to  think  any  more  about  it,  three  or 
four  persons  came  up  to  greet  Godmother, 
who  didn't  try  to  introduce  Mary  Alice  at 
all — just  let  her  "tag  along"  without  any 
responsibility. 

Mary  Alice  found  that  she  liked  to  hear 
these  people  talk.  They  had  a  kind  of 
eagerness  about  many  things  that  made 
them  all  seem  to  have  much  more  to  say 
than  could  possibly  be  said  then  and 
there.  Mary  Alice  felt  just  as  she  thought 
the  lady  must  have  felt  who,  after  the 
man  standing  beside  Mary  Alice  had  made 
one  or  two  remarks,  in  a  brief  turn  the 
conversation  took  towards  the  Children's 
Theatre,  cried  :  "  Oh  !  I  want  to  talk  to 
you  about  that."  And  they  moved  away 
somewhere  and  sat  down  together.  Then, 
somehow,  from  that  the  general  talk 
glanced  off  on  to  some  actors  and  ac- 
tresses who  had  come  out  of  the  foreign 
[58] 


The  "Lion"  of  the  Evening 

quarter  where  the  Children's  Theatre  was, 
and  were  astonishing  up-town  folk  with 
the  fire  and  fervour  of  their  art.  Some 
one  who  seemed  to  know  a  good  deal 
about  the  speaking  voice,  commented  on 
the  curious  change  of  tone,  from  resonant 
throat  sounds  to  nasal  head  sounds, 
which  generally  marked  the  Slav's  trans- 
ition from  his  native  tongue  to  English ; 
and  gave  several  examples  in  such  excel- 
lent imitation  that  every  one  was  amused, 
even  Mary  Alice,  who  knew  nothing 
about  the  persons  imitated. 

Then,  some  one  who  had  been  recently 
to  California  and  seen  Madame  Modjeska 
and  been  privileged  to  hear  some  chap- 
ters of  the  memoirs  she  was  writing,  told 
an  incident  or  two  from  them  about  the 
experiences  of  that  great  Polish  artiste  in 
learning  English.  A  man  asked  this 
lady  if  she  knew  what  Modjeska  was 
[59] 


Everybody  ' s  Lonesome 

going  to  do  with  her  Memoirs  when  they 
were  ready  for  publication ;  and  they 
two  moved  away  to  talk  more  about 
that.  And  so  it  went.  Mary  Alice 
didn't  often  know  what  the  talk  was 
about ;  but  she  was  so  interested  in  it 
that  she  found  herself  wishing  they  would 
talk  more  about  each  thing  and  wouldn't 
break  up  and  drift  off  the  way  they  did. 
They  had  such  a  wide,  wide  world — these 
people — and  they  seemed  to  see  every- 
thing that  went  on  around  them,  to  feel 
everything  that  can  go  on  within.  And 
they  made  no  effort  about  anything. 
They  talked  about  the  Red  Cross  cam- 
paign against  tuberculosis,  or  big  game 
hunting  in  Africa,  or  the  unerring  accu- 
racy of  steel-workers  on  the  skeletons  of 
skyscrapers,  throwing  red-hot  rivets 
across  yawning  spaces  and  striking  the 

bucket,  held  to  receive  them,  every  time. 
[60] 


The  "Lion"  of  the  Evening 

And  their  talk  was  as  simple,  as  eager, 
as  unaffected,  as  hers  had  been  as  she 
talked  with  Godmother  about  her  blue 
silk  dress.  All  those  things  were  a  part 
of  their  world,  as  the  blue  dress  was  a 
part  of  hers. 

She  was  so  interested  that  slie  forgot  to 
be  afraid.  And  by  and  by  when  God- 
mother had  drifted  off  with  some  one  and 
Mary  Alice  found  herself  alone  with  one 
man,  she  was  feeling  so  "folksy"  that 
she  looked  up  at  him  and  laughed. 

"  Seems  as  if  every  one  had  found  a 
'burning  theme' — all  but  us!"  she 
said. 

The  young  man — he  was  young,  and 
very  good-looking,  in  an  unusual  sort 
of  way — flushed.  "  I  don't  know  any  of 
them,"  he  said ;  "  I'm  a  stranger." 

"So  am  I,"  said  Mary  Alice,  "and  I 

don't  know  any  one  either.     But  I'd  like 
[61] 


Everybody  's  Lonesome 

to  know  some  of  these  people  better; 
wouldn't  you?" 

"  I  don't  know,"  returned  the  young 
man.  "  I  haven't  seen  much  of  people, 
and  I  don't  feel  at  home  with  them." 

"  Oh ! "  cried  Mary  Alice,  quite  excit- 
edly, "  you  need  a  fairy  godmother  to  tell 
you  a  Secret." 

The  young  man  looked  unpleasantly 
mystified.  "  What  secret  ?  "  he  asked. 

She  started  to  explain.  He  seemed 
amused,  at  first,  in  a  supercilious  kind  of 
way.  But  Mary  Alice  was  so  interested 
in  her  "  burning  theme  "  that  she  did  not 
notice  how  he  looked.  Gradually  his 
superciliousness  faded. 

"  Let  us  find  a  place  where  you  can  tell 
me  the  Secret,"  he  said,  looking  about 
the  drawing-room.  Every  place  seemed 
taken. 

"  There's  a  settle  in  the  hall,"  suggested 
[62] 


The  "Lion"  of  the  Evening 

Mary  Alice.  And  they  went  out  and  sat 
on  that.  "  But  I  can't  tell  you  the  Secret," 
she  said.  "  Not  yet,  anyway." 

"  Please ! "  he  begged.  "  I  may  never 
see  you  again." 

She  looked  distressed.  "  Oh,  do  you 
think  so  ? "  she  said.  "  But  anyhow  I 
can't  tell  you.  I  can  only  tell  you  up  to 
where  the  Secret  comes  in,  and  then — if  I 
never  see  you  again,  you  can  think  about 
it ;  and  any  time  you  write  to  me  for  the 
Secret,  I'll  send  it  to  you  to  help  you 
when  you  need  it  most." 

"  I  need  it  now,"  he  urged. 

"  No,  you  don't,"  she  answered.  "  I 
thought  I  needed  it  right  away,  but  I 
wouldn't  have  understood  it  or  believed 
it  if  I'd  heard  it  then."  And  she  told 
him  how  it  was  whispered  to  her,  after 
she  had  been  kind  to  the  man  of  many 
millions. 

[63] 


Everybody  9s  Lonesome 

"  And  does  it  work  ?  "  he  asked,  laugh- 
ing at  her  story  of  the  toast  and  tea. 

"I  don't  know,  yet,"  she  admitted, 
"  I'm  just  trying  it.  That's  another  rea- 
son I  can't  tell  you  now.  I  have  to  wait 
until  I've  tried  it  thoroughly." 

"  You're  a  nice,  modest  young  person 
from  the  backwoods,"  laughed  God- 
mother when  they  were  going  home, 
"  selecting  the  largest,  livest  lion  of  the 
evening  and  running  off  with  him  to  the 
safe  shelter  of  the  hall." 

"  Lion?  "  said  Mary  Alice,  wonderingly. 
"What  lion?" 

"  The  young  man  you  kept  so  shame- 
lessly to  yourself  nearly  all  evening." 

"  I  didn't  know  he  was  any  kind  of  a 
lion,"  apologized  Mary  Alice,  humbly. 

"  He  just  seemed  to  be "  She  stopped, 

and  her  eyes  danced  delightedly.  "  I  was 
[64] 


The  "Lion"  of  the  Evening 

trying  the  Secret  on  him,"  she  went  on, 
"and  I  believe  it  worked." 

"  I  think  it  must  have,"  said  Godmother, 
"  for  he  came  up  to  me,  before  I  left,  and 
exhibited  all  the  signs  of  a  gentleman 
who  wants  to  be  asked  to  call.  So  I  in- 
vited him  to  come  in  to-morrow  for  a  cup 
of  tea." 

"Is  he — is  he  coming?"  asked  Mary 
Alice,  "  and  won't  you  please  tell  me  what 
kind  of  a  lion  he  is,  and  what's  his  name  ? " 

"  He  is  coming,"  said  Godmother, 
smiling  mischievously,  "and  I  don't  know 
whether  to  tell  you  his  name  or  not. 
Maybe  he'd  rather  do  that  himself." 

"  I  don't  care  if  he  doesn't,"  laughed 
Mary  Alice ;  "  he's  a  nice  man,  and  he 

seemed  to  be  real "     And  then  she 

stopped  again  and  looked  mysteriously 
knowing.  And  Godmother  nodded  ap- 
provingly. 

[65] 


Everybody  *s  Lonesome 

11 1  loved  the  party,"  murmured  Mary 
Alice,  happily,  as  Godmother  bent  over 
to  give  her  her  last  good-night  kiss.  "  I 
never  supposed  a  party  where  one  didn't 
know  a  soul  could  be  so  nice." 

"  Knowing  or  not  knowing  people 
makes  much  less  difference — when  you 
remember  the  Secret.  Don't  you  find 
it  so  ?  "  said  Godmother. 

And  Mary  Alice  assented.  "  Yes,  oh, 
yes !  It's  a  wonderful  magic — the  dear 
Secret  is,"  she  said. 


[66] 


VII 

AT  CANDLE-LIGHTIN'  TIME 

THE  next  morning,  Mary  Alice  wanted 
to  know  who  everybody  was ;  and  God- 
mother told  her — every  one  but  "  the 
young  man  lion "  as  she  called  him. 
The  home  they  had  been  to  was  that  of  a 
celebrated  editor  and  man  of  letters  who 
numbered  among  his  friends  the  most 
delightful  people  of  many  nations.  The 
guests  represented  a  variety  of  talents. 
The  large,  dark,  distinctly-foreign  looking 
man  was  the  great  baritone  of  one  of  the 
opera  houses.  The  younger  man,  with  the 
long,  dark  hair,  was  a  violinist  about  whom 
all  New  York  was  talking.  The  gray- 
haired  man  with  the  goatee  was  an  ad- 
miral. The  gentle-spoken,  shy  man  with 
the  silver  hair  was  a  famous  Indian  fighter 
[67] 


Everybody  9s  Lonesome 

of  the  old  frontier  days.  The  man  who 
spoke  informedly  of  the  Children's  Thea- 
tre was  one  of  the  best-known  of  Ameri- 
can men  of  letters.  The  lady  who  was 
anxious  to  interrogate  him  about  it  was 
one  whose  fame  as  an  uplifter  of  hu- 
manity has  travelled  'round  the  globe. 
This  one  was  a  painter,  and  that  one  a 
sculptor,  and  another  was  a  poetic  dram- 
atist. 

"  My ! "  sighed  Mary  Alice,  "  I'm  glad 
you  didrit  tell  me  before  we  went.  As 
nearly  as  I  can  remember,  I  talked  to  the 
Admiral  about  the  Fifth  Avenue  shop- 
windows,  and  to  the  General  about  the 
Jumel  Mansion — which  he  said  he  had 
never  seen  but  had  always  meant  to  see 
— and  to  the  painter — what  did  I  talk  to 
the  painter  about  ?  Oh  !  my  pink  beads. 
He  admired  the  colour." 

"Yes,"  said  Godmother,  "and  if  you 
[68] 


At  Candle- Light  in    Time 

had  known  who  they  were  you  would 
probably  have  tried  to  talk  to  the  Ad- 
miral about  ships  and  sea-fights,  and  to 
the  painter  about  the  Metropolitan  Mu- 
seum, and  would  have  bored  them  ter- 
ribly. Most  real  people,  I  think,  like 
to  be  taken  for  what  they  are  rather  than 
for  what  they  may  have  done.  That 
is  one  of  the  things  I  learned  in  my  long 
years  in  Europe  where  I  was  constantly 
finding  myself  in  conversation  with  some 
one  I  did  not  know.  We  always  began 
on  a  basis  of  common  humanity,  and  we 
soon  found  our  mutual  interests,  and  en- 
joyed talking  about  them.  It  taught  me 
a  great  deal  about  people  and  the  folly 
of  taking  any  of  them  on  other  people's 
estimates." 

But  all  this  was  only  mildly  interesting, 
now,  compared  with  "  the  young  man 
lion." 

[69] 


Everybody  ' s  Lonesome 

Of  course  they  had  to  tell  him,  first 
thing  when  he  came,  that  Mary  Alice  did 
not  know  who  he  was.  He  looked  a 
little  surprised  at  first ;  then  he  seemed 
to  relish  the  joke  hugely.  When  God- 
mother added  certain  explanations,  he 
grew  grave  again. 

"  I  like  that,"  he  said.  "  I  think  it's  a 
fine  game,  and  I  wish  I  might  play  it.  I 
can't,  most  of  the  time.  But  I  can  play 
it  with  you,  if  you'll  let  me,"  he  went  on, 
turning  to  Mary  Alice.  She  nodded  as- 
sent. "That's  splendid!"  he  cried.  "I 
haven't  played  a  jolly  game  like  this 
since  I  was  a  boy.  Now,  you're  not  to 
think  I'm  a  king  in  disguise  or  anything 
like  that.  There's  really  nothing  about 
me  that's  at  all  interesting ;  only,  on  ac- 
count of  something  that  has  happened  to 
me,  people  are  talking  about  me — for 
nine  days  or  so  I'll  be  going  on,  in  a  day 
[70] 


At  Candle-Light  in    Time 

or  two,  and  every  one  will  forget.  Now 
let's  play  the  game.  May  I  make  toast  ?  " 

"  You  may,"  she  said. 

In  a  little  while,  some  one  came  to  call 
on  Godmother  who  took  the  caller  into 
the  library ;  and  the  toast-making  went 
on  undisturbed. 

Whoever  he  was,  he  seemed  to  know 
something  about  camp-fires ;  and  squat- 
ting on  the  rug  before  the  glowing  grate, 
toasting  bread,  reminded  him  of  things 
he  had  heard  strange  men  tell,  as  the 
intimacy  of  the  night  fire  in  the  wilder- 
ness brought  their  stories  out.  It  was 
fascinating  talk,  and  Mary  Alice  listened 
enthralled. 

"  I  didn't  know  I  had  that  much  talk 
in  me,"  he  laughed,  a  little  confusedly, 
as  he  rose  to  go.  "  It  must  be  the  sur- 
roundings that  are  responsible — and  the 
game." 


Everybody  9s  Lonesome 

Godmother,  whose  caller  was  gone, 
asked  him  to  stay  to  dinner. 

"  I  wish  I  could  ! "  he  said  wistfully, 
noting  in  the  distance  the  cozy  dinner 
table  set  for  two.  "  If  you  could  only 
know  where  I  must  dine  instead  1 " 

"You  seem  to  dread  it,"  said  Mary 
Alice. 

"  I  do,"  he  answered. 

She  looked  at  Godmother.  "  I  wish 
we  could  tell  him  the  Secret,"  she  sug- 
gested shyly,  "  it  might  help." 

Godmother  looked  very  thoughtful,  as 
if  gravely  considering.  "Not  yet,"  she 
decided,  shaking  her  head;  "it's  too 
soon." 

"  I  think  so  too,"  he  said.  "  I'm  afraid 
you  might  lose  interest  in  me  after  you 
had  told  me.  I'd  rather  wait." 

The  next  day  was  Sunday.     He  had 
[72] 


At  Candle- Light  in    Time 

engagements  for  lunch  and  dinner,  but 
he  asked  if  he  might  slip  in  again  for 
tea ;  he  was  leaving  town  Monday. 

So  they  had  another  beautiful  hour,  at 
what  Godmother  loved  to  speak  of  as 
"  candle-lightin'  time,"  and  while  Mary 
Alice  was  in  the  kitchen  cutting  bread  to 
toast,  Godmother  and  her  guest  made 
notes  in  tiny  note-books. 

"  There ! "  she  said,  when  she  had 
written  the  Gramercy  Park  address  in 
his  book.  "Anything  you  send  here 
will  always  reach  her,  wherever  she  is." 

"  And  any  answer  she  may  care  to 
make  to  me,  if  you'll  address  it  to  me 
there,"  handing  back  her  book  to  her, 
"  will  always  reach  me,  wherever  I  may 
be." 

"  It  is  a  splendid  game,"  he  said  when 
he  was  going,  "  and  I'm  glad  you  let  me 
[73] 


Everybody  's  Lonesome 

play.  If  more  people  played  this  game, 
I'd  find  the  world  a  lot  pleasanter  place 
to  live  in." 

"  When  you  know  the  Secret  you  can 
show  other  people  how  to  play,"  Mary 
Alice  suggested. 

"  That's  so,"  he  said.  "  Well,  I  shan't 
let  you  forget  you  are  to  tell  it  to  me." 


[74] 


VIII 
LEARNING  TO  BE  BRAVE  AND  SWEET 

GODMOTHER'S  charming  drawing-room 
seemed  intolerably  empty  when  he  had 
gone  and  they  two  stood  by  the  fire  and 
looked  into  it  trying  to  see  again  the 
jungle  scene  he  had  pointed  out  to  them 
in  the  bed  of  coals.  But  the  jungle  was 
gone ;  the  vision  had  faded  with  the  seer. 
And  Godmother  and  Mary  Alice  began 
picking  up  the  teacups  and  the  toast 
plate,  almost  as  if  there  had  been  a 
funeral. 

Then  Godmother  laughed.  "  How 
solemn  we  are  1 "  she  said,  pretending  to 
think  it  all  very  funny. 

But  Mary  Alice  couldn't  pretend.  She 
set  down  his  teacup  which  she  had  just 
lifted  with  gentle  reverence  off  the  mantel, 
[75] 


Everybody  'j  Lonesome 

where  he  left  it,  and  went  closer  to  God- 
mother. Her  lips  were  trembling,  but 
she  did  not  have  to  speak. 

"  I  know,  Precious — I  know,"  whis- 
pered Godmother.  She  sat  down  in  a 
big  chair  close  to  the  fire — the  chair  he 
had  just  left — and  Mary  Alice  sat  on  the 
hearth-rug  and  nestled  her  head  against 
Godmother's  knees.  Neither  of  them 
said  anything  for  what  seemed  a  long 
time.  They  just  looked  into  the  glowing 
bed  of  coals  and  saw — different  things  ! 

Then,  "  I  think,"  Mary  Alice  began,  in 
a  voice  that  was  full  of  tears,  "  I  think  I 
wish  we  hadn't  played  any  game.  I 
think  I  wish  I  hadn't  seen  him  at  all." 

"  Lovey  dear  !  " 

"  Yes,  I  do  ! "  wept  Mary  Alice,  refus- 
ing to  be  comforted.     "  Everything  was 
beautiful,  before  he  came.     And  now  he's 
gone,  and  I'm  so — lonesome  ! " 
[76] 


Learning  to  be  Brave 

Godmother  was  silent  for  a  moment. 
"  There's  the  Secret,"  she  suggested,  at 
last.  "  It  was — it  was  when  I  felt  just  as 
you  do  now,  that  I  began  to  learn  the 
Secret." 

Mary  Alice  made  no  reply ;  there 
seemed  to  be  nothing  that  she  could  say. 
But  after  they  had  sat  silent  for  a  long 
while,  she  got  up  and  kissed  her  god- 
mother with  a  new  passion  which  had  in 
it  tenderness  as  well  as  adoration. 

"  I  don't  believe  I  can  be  brave  and 
lovely  about  it,  as  you  must  have  been  to 
make  people  love  you  so.  But  I'm  going 
to  fry,"  she  said. 

The  success  with  which  Mary  Alice's 
trying  met  was  really  beautiful  to  see. 
At  first,  it  was  pretty  hard  for  her  to  care 
much  about  the  Secret,  or  about  people. 
Every  assemblage  just  seemed  to  her  an 
empty  crowd  where  he  was  not.  But 
[77] 


Everybody  's  Lonesome 

when  she  began  to  wonder  to  how  many 
of  those  selfsame  people  the  others 
seemed  the  same  as  to  her,  she  was  inter- 
ested once  more ;  the  Secret  began  to 
work. 

It  worked  so  well,  in  fact,  that  Mary 
Alice  came  to  be  quite  famous  in  a  small 
way.  People  in  Godmother's  distin- 
guished and  delightful  "  set "  talked  en- 
thusiastically of  Mary  Alice's  quiet 
charm,  and  she  was  asked  here  and 
asked  there,  and  had  a  quite  wonderful 
time. 

Her  "  poor  "  friend  came  in,  whenever 
he  could,  for  tea  and  toast;  and  some- 
times he  made  what  he  called  "  a  miser- 
able return  "  for  this  hospitality,  by  ask- 
ing Godmother  and  Mary  Alice  to  dine 
with  him  at  his  palace  on  upper  Fifth 
Avenue  and  afterwards  to  sit  in  his  box 
at  the  opera.  He  was  a  widower,  and 
[78] 


Learning  to  be  Brave 

his  two  sons  were  married  and  lived  in 
palaces  of  their  own.  His  only  daughter 
was  abroad  finishing  her  education ;  and 
his  great,  lonely  house  was  to  serve  a 
brief  purpose  for  her  when  she  "came 
out"  and  until  she  married.  Then,  he 
thought,  he  would  either  give  it  up  or 
turn  it  over  to  her ;  certainly  he  would 
not  keep  it  for  himself. 

At  first,  Mary  Alice  found  it  hard  to 
remember  the  Secret  "  with  so  many  foot- 
men around."  But  by  and  by  she  got 
used  to  them  and,  other  things  being 
equal,  could  have  nearly  as  good  a  time 
in  a  palace  as  in  a  flat.  For  this,  she 
had  a  wonderful  example  in  Godmother 
of  whom  some  one  had  once  said,  admir- 
ingly, that  she  was  "  never  mean  to  any- 
body just  because  he's  rich."  It  was 
true.  Godmother  was  just  as  "  nice  "  to 
the  rich  as  to  the  poor,  to  the  "  cowering 
[79] 


Everybody  9s  Lonesome 

celebrity  "  (as  she  was  wont  to  say)  as  to 
the  most  important  nobody.  It  was  the 
Secret  that  helped  her  to  do  it.  It  was 
the  Secret  that  helped  Mary  Alice. 

And  so  the  winter  went  flying  by. 
Twice,  letters  came — from  him ;  and 
Mary  Alice  answered  them,  giving  the 
answers  to  Godmother  to  send.  Once  he 
wrote  from  London,  and  once  from  some- 
where on  the  Bosphorus.  They  were 
lonesome  letters,  both  ;  but  he  didn't  ask 
for  the  Secret,  though  he  mentioned  it 
each  time. 


IX 

TELLING  THE  SECRET  TO  MOTHER 

IN  March,  Godmother  said:  "I  am 
going  abroad  for  the  summer,  dear,  and 
I've  just  had  a  conference  with  my  man 
of  affairs.  He  reports  some  unexpectedly 
good  dividends  from  my  small  handful 
of  stock  in  a  company  that  is  enjoying  a 
boom,  and  so  if  we're  careful — you  and  I 
— there  will  be  enough  so  I  can  take  you 
with  me."  Mary  Alice  was  too  sur- 
prised, too  happy  to  speak.  "  Now, 
you'll  want  to  go  home,  of  course," 
Godmother  went  on,  "  and  so  we'll  agree 
on  a  sailing  date  and  then  you  may  fly 
back  to  mother  as  soon  as  you  wish,  and 
stay  till  it's  time  to  go  abroad." 

They  decided  to  sail  the  first  of  May  ; 

so  Mary  Alice  went  home  almost  imme- 
[81] 


Everybody  ' s  Lonesome 

diately,  and  on  an  evening  late  in  March 
got  off  the  train  on  to  that  familiar  plat- 
form whence  she  had  so  fearfully  set 
forth  only  four  short  months  ago. 

Father  was  at  the  station  to  meet  her ; 
and  at  home,  by  the  soft-coal  fire  burning 
beneath  the  white  marble  mantel  in  the 
sitting-room,  Mother  was  sewing  and 
waiting  for  her. 

Mary  Alice  was  thinking,  as  she  and 
Father  neared  the  house,  of  that  miser- 
able evening  in  the  fall  when  she  had 
stolen  past  her  mother  and  gone  up  to 
her  room  and  wept  passionately,  in  the 
dark,  because  life  had  no  enchantment 
for  her.  There  would  be  no  stealing 
past  dear  Mother  now !  For  the  Secret 
was  for  Mother,  too — yes,  very  much  in- 
deed for  Mother,  as  Mary  Alice  and  God- 
mother had  agreed  in  their  wonderful 

"  tucking  in  "  talk  the  night  before  Mary 
[82! 


Telling  the  Secret  to  Mother 

Alice  came  away.  All  the  way  home,  on 
the  train,  she  had  hardly  been  able  to 
wait  till  she  got  to  Mother  with  this 
beautiful  new  thing  in  her  heart. 

Perhaps  Mother  had  dreaded  her  girl's 
home-coming,  in  a  way,  almost  as  much 
as  she  yearned  for  it.  But  if  she  had, 
Mary  Alice  never  knew  it ;  and  if  she 
had,  Mother  herself  soon  forgot  it.  For 
in  all  the  twenty  years  of  Mary  Alice's 
life,  her  mother  had  never,  it  seemed,  had 
so  much  of  her  girl  as  in  the  month  that 
followed  her  home-coming.  Hour  after 
hour  they  worked  about  the  house  or  sat 
before  that  grate  fire  in  the  unchanged 
sitting-room,  and  talked  and  talked  and 
talked.  Mary  Alice  told  every  little  de- 
tail of  those  four  months  until  her  mother 
lived  them  over  with  her  and  the  light 
and  life  of  them  animated  her  as  they  had 
animated  Mary  Alice. 
[83] 


Everybody  's  Lonesome 

Little  by  little,  in  that  month,  Mary 
Alice  came  at  least  to  the  beginning  of  a 
wonderful  new  understanding :  came  to 
see  how  parents — and  ^afparents  ! — 
cease  to  have  any  particular  future  of 
their  own  and  live  in  the  futures  of  the 
young  things  they  love.  Mary  Alice's 
bleak  years  had  been  bitter  for  her 
mother,  too ;  perhaps  bitterer  than  for 
her.  And  her  new  enchantment  with  life 
was  like  new  blood  in  her  mother's 
veins. 

Mother  cried  when  Mary  Alice  told 
her  the  Secret.  "Oh,  it's  true!  it's 
true !  "  she  said.  "  If  only  everybody 
could  know  it,  what  a  different  world  this 
would  be  1 " 

And  as  for  the — Other  !     When  Mary 

Alice  told  her  mother  about  him  and 

what  his   coming  into   her  life  and  his 

going  out  of  it  had  meant,  Mother  just 

[84] 


Telling  the  Secret  to  Mother 

held  her  girl  close  and  could  not 
speak. 

The  precious  month  flew  by  on  wings 
as  of  the  wind.  Mary  Alice  was  "the 
town  wonder,"  as  her  brother  Johnny 
said,  and  she  enjoyed  that  as  only  a  girl 
who  has  been  the  town  wall-flower  can ; 
but  after  all,  everything  was  as  nothing 
compared  with  Mother  and  the  exulta- 
tion that  had  so  evidently  come  into  her 
life  because  out  of  her  love  and  pain  and 
sacrifice  a  soul  had  come  into  the  world 
to  draw  so  richly  from  the  treasures  of 
other  hearts  and  to  give  so  richly  back 
again.  There  is  no  triumph  like  it,  as 
Mary  Alice  would  perhaps  know,  some 
day.  A  mother's  purest  happiness  is 
very  like  God's  own. 

But  at  last  the  sailing  date  was  close 
at  hand.  Mary  Alice's  heart  was  heavy 
and  glad  together.  "If  I  could  only 
[85] 


Everybody  's  Lonesome 

take  you  1 "  she  whispered  to  her 
mother. 

Mother  shook  her  head.  "  I  wouldn't 
go  and  leave  your  father  and  the  chil- 
dren," she  said.  "  You  go  and  enjoy  it 
all  for  me.  I  like  it  better  that  way." 

And  so,  once  more  Mary  Alice  smiled 
through  tear-filled  eyes  at  the  dear  faces 
on  the  station  platform,  and  was  gone 
again  into  the  big  world  beyond  her 
home.  But  this  time  what  a  different 
girl  it  was  who  went  1 


[86] 


X 

THE  OLD  WORLD  AND  THE  KING 

THEY  had  an  unusually  delightful  voy- 
age. The  weather  was  perfection  and 
their  fellow-voyagers  included  many  per- 
sons interesting  to  talk  with  and  many 
others  interesting  to  observe  and  specu- 
late about. 

One  particularly  charming  experience 
came  to  Mary  Alice  through  the  Cap- 
tain's appreciation  of  her  eagerness. 
Godmother  had  taught  her  to  love  the 
stars.  As  well  as  they  could,  in  New 
York  where,  to  most  people,  only  scraps 
of  sky  are  visible  at  a  time,  they  had 
been  wont  to  watch  with  keen  interest 
for  the  nightly  appearance  of  stars  they 
could  see  from  their  windows  or  from  the 
streets  as  they  went  to  and  fro.  And 
[87] 


Everybody  ' s  Lonesome 

when  they  got  aboard  ship  and  had  the 
whole  sky  to  look  at,  they  revelled  in 
their  night  hours  on  the  deck,  and  in 
picking  out  the  constellations  and  their 
"  bright,  particular  stars."  This  led  the 
Captain  to  tell  Mary  Alice  something  of 
the  stars  as  the  sailors'  friends  ;  and  she 
had  one  of  the  most  memorable  evenings 
of  her  life  when  he  explained  to  her  some- 
thing of  the  science  of  navigation  and 
made  her  see  how  their  great  greyhound 
of  the  ocean,  just  like  the  first  frail  barks 
of  the  Tyrians,  picked  its  way  across 
trackless  wastes  of  sea  by  the  infallible 
guidance  of  "  the  friendly  stars."  All 
this  particularly  interested  Mary  Alice 
because  of  Some  One  who  lived  much  in 
the  open  and  spent  many  and  many  a 
night  on  the  broad  deserts,  looking  up  at 
the  stars. 

They  landed  at  Naples,  and  lingered  a 
[88] 


The  Old  Jf^orld  and  the  King 

fortnight  in  that  lovely  vicinity ;  then, 
up  to  Rome,  to  Florence  and  Venice,  to 
Milan  and  the  Italian  Lakes,  through 
Switzerland  into  France,  and  so  to  Paris. 
Godmother  had  once  spent  a  winter  at 
Capri ;  she  had  spent  several  winters  in 
Florence.  She  knew  Venice  well.  She 
had  hosts  of  dear,  familiar  things  to  show 
Mary  Alice  in  each  place. 

At  last  they  came  to  Paris.  God- 
mother lamented  that  it  was  in  July  they 
came  ;  but  Mary  Alice,  who  had  no  recol- 
lections of  Paris  in  April  and  May,  found 
nothing  to  lament.  They  stayed  more 
than  a  month — and  made  a  number  of  the 
enchanting  little  journeys  which  can  be 
made  out  of  Paris  forever  and  ever  with- 
out repeating,  it  seems. 

Then,  with  a  trunk  in  which  were  two 
"  really,  truly  "  Paris  dresses — very,  very 
modest  ones,  to  be  sure,  but  unmis- 
[89] 


Every  body  '  s  Lonesome 

takably  touched  with  Parisian  chic — and  a 
mind  in  which  were  hundreds  of  wonder- 
ful Paris  memories,  Mary  Alice  crossed 
to  England.  They  went  at  once  to  Lon- 
don where,  it  seemed  to  Mary  Alice,  she 
must  stay  forever,  to  be  satisfied.  God- 
mother had  hosts  of  charming  friends  in 
London,  even  beyond  what  she  had  in 
Italy  and  France ;  but  for  the  first  fort- 
night she  gave  up  her  time  entirely  to 
Mary  Alice's  sightseeing.  By  and  by 
her  friends  began  to  find  out  she  was 
there  and  to  clamour  insistently  for  her. 
And  as  the  exodus  from  town  was  as 
complete  as  it  ever  gets,  most  of  the  in- 
vitations were  from  the  country.  So  that 
Mary  Alice  began  to  see  something  of 
that  English  country-house  life  she  had 
read  so  much  about,  and  to  meet  per- 
sonages whose  names  filled  her  with  awe 
— until  she  remembered  the  Secret.  And 
[90] 


The  Old  World  and  the  King 

thus  she  came  to  the  Great  Event  of  her 
life. 

Godmother  had  what  Mary  Alice  called 
"  a  duchess  friend "  of  whom  she  was 
very,  very  fond.  The  Duchess  was  a 
woman  about  Godmother's  age,  and  quite 
as  lovely  to  look  at  as  a  duchess  should 
be.  She  was  mistress  of  many  and  vast 
estates,  and  wore — on  occasions — a  coro- 
net of  diamonds  and  strings  of  pearls 
"  worth  a  king's  ransom,"  just  like  a 
duchess  in  a  story.  But  she  seemed  to 
Mary  Alice  to  have  hardly  the  mildest 
interest  in  the  jewels  she  wore  and  the 
palaces  she  lived  in  ;  Mary  Alice  found  it 
hard  to  bear  in  mind  that  to  the  Duchess 
these  were  just  as  matter-of-fact,  as  usual, 
as  unvariable,  as  the  home  sitting-room 
and  the  "  good "  hat  had  once  been  to 
Mary  Alice.  And  like  Mary  Alice,  the 
Duchess  found  her  happiness  in  reaching 


Everybody  ' s  Lonesome 

out  for  something  new  and  different.  The 
Duchess  liked  the  world  that  Godmother 
lived  in — the  world  of  Godmother's  lovely 
mind ;  and  she  loved  Godmother's  com- 
panionship. 

That  was  how  it  came  about  that  Mary 
Alice  found  herself  very  often  in  exalted 
society.  The  exalted  personages  did  not 
notice  her  much ;  but  every  once  in  a 
while,  by  remembering  the  Secret,  she 
got  on  happy  terms  with  some  of  them. 

And  at  last  a  very  unusual  thing  hap- 
pened. The  King  was  coming  to  honour 
the  Duke  and  Duchess  with  a  visit ; 
coming  to  see  one  of  those  ancient  and 
glorious  estates  the  like  of  which  no  king 
owns,  and  which  are  the  pride  of  all  the 
kingdom.  Many  sovereigns  had  stayed 
at  this  splendid  old  place  on  England's 
south  coast — a  place  as  famous  for  its 
beauty  as  for  its  six  hundred  years  of 
[92] 


The  Old  World  and  the  King 

history  ;  so  it  was  no  unusual  thing  for  it 
to  house  a  king  The  unusual  part  of  it 
all  was  Mary  Alice  being  there.  By  the 
King's  permission  a  wonderful  house 
party  was  asked  to  meet  him.  God- 
mother couldn't  be  asked  ;  she  had  never 
been  presented,  and  the  King  was  un- 
aware of  her  existence.  The  Duchess 
would  not  have  dared  to  present  God- 
mother's name  on  the  list  submitted  to 
the  King.  Much  less,  therefore,  would 
she  have  dared  to  present  Mary  Alice's. 

"  But ! "  said  the  Duchess,  and  went 

on  to  unfold  a  plan. 

If  Mary  Alice  would  not  mind  staying 
on  with  the  Duchess  while  Godmother 
paid  another  visit ;  and  if  she  would  not 
mind  having  a  room  somewhere  in  a 
remote  wing;  and  would  not  mind  not 
being  asked  to  mingle  with  the  party  in 
any  way,  she  might  see  something  of 
[93] 


Everybody  *s  Lonesome 

such  sights  as  perhaps  she  would  never 
be  able  to  see  otherwise.  Mary  Alice 
was  delighted  partly  because  she  wanted 
to  see  the  sights  and  partly  because  the 
thought  of  going  away  from  this  wonder- 
ful place  made  her  heart  ache.  So  she 
was  moved  out  of  the  fine  guest  suite  she 
and  Godmother  had  been  lodged  in,  and 
over  to  a  room  in  a  far  wing  of  the  vast 
house.  From  this  wing  one  could  look 
down  on  to  the  terraces  for  which 
the  love  and  genius  of  none  other 
than  quaint  John  Evelyn — greatest  of 
England's  Garden  Philosophers — were  re- 
sponsible. To  these  terraces  the  guests 
would  certainly  come,  and  to  the  world- 
famous  rose  garden  into  which  also  Mary 
Alice  could  look  from  her  window  in  the 
far  wing.  But  even  if  she  were  to  see  no 
royalty,  she  was  grateful  for  the  privilege 
of  staying  on  a  few  days  longer  in  this 
194] 


T  he  Old  World  and  the  King 

Paradise  by  the  sea.  And  not  the  least 
delight  of  her  new  quarters  was  that  they 
were  high  enough  up  so  that  from  them, 
she  could  overlook  the  sheltering  Ilex- 
trees  which  made  these  marvellous  gar- 
dens possible  so  close  to  the  shore,  and  see 
the  Channel  ships  a-sailing — three-masted 
schooners  laden  with  wood ;  fishing- 
smacks  ;  London  barges  with  their  pic- 
turesque red  sails  bellying  in  the  wind ; 
and  an  occasional  ocean  liner  trailing  its 
black  smoke  across  the  horizon.  What 
with  the  sea  and  the  gardens  and  the 
rich  history  of  the  place,  Mary  Alice  felt 
that  she  could  never  tire  of  it,  even  if  she 
did  not  see  the  King.  But  it  would  be 
delightful  to  see  him,  too.  Some  day 
the  history  of  this  splendid  old  place 
would  include  this  royal  visit ;  and  Mary 
Alice,  who  had  read  of  other  such  oc- 
casions and  wished  she  might  have  been 
[95] 


Everybody  ' s  Lonesome 

a  mouse  in  a  corner  to  witness  them — 
as,  for  instance,  when  Queen  Elizabeth 
was  here — now  felt  the  thrill'  of  having 
that  wish  come  true,  in  a  way ;  and  so 
far  from  feeling  "  set  aside  "  or  slighted, 
liked  her  window  in  the  wing  and  her 
participation  in  the  party  above  any  other 
she  might  have  had. 

Mary  Alice  dined,  the  first  night  of  the 
house  party,  with  the  Duchess's  older 
children,  and  then  went  back  to  her  room 
to  sit  at  the  window  and  look  down  on  the 
terraces  where,  after  a  while,  some  of  the 
men  guests  came  to  smoke. 

It  was  late,  but  the  twilight  still  lin- 
gered. Mary  Alice  could  not  tell  who 
many  of  the  men  were,  but  she  could  see 
the  King  and  she  watched  him  interestedly 
as  he  paced  up  and  down.  She  had  been 
told  how  no  one  must  speak  to  a  king 
until  the  king  has  first  spoken  to  him ; 
[96] 


The  Old  World  and  the  King 

and  she  felt  that  at  best  it  must  be  a 
dreary  business — being  a  king. 

Presently,  though,  in  the  thickening 
shadows  she  saw  a  form  that  made  her 
heart  stand  still.  Could  it  be  ?  She  was 
probably  mistaken — madly  mistaken — 
but  something  in  the  way  a  man  down 
there  carried  himself  made  her  think  of 
Godmother's  little  drawing-room  in  far- 
off  New  York  and  a  man  who  was  "  play- 
ing the  game."  But  the  King  was  talking 
to  this  man — talking  most  interestedly, 
it  seemed.  She  must  be  mistaken ! 

Nevertheless,  when  the  men  had  all 
gone  in,  she  put  on  a  white  shawl  and 
slipped  down  on  to  the  terrace.  She  felt 
as  if  she  must  know  ;  and  of  course  she 
couldn't  ask,  for  she  did  not  know  his 
name. 

The  terraces  were  deserted,  and  she 
paced  up  and  down  undisturbed,  trying 
[97] 


Everybody  's  Lonesome 


to  assure  herself  that  Godmother  would 
probably  have  known  if  he  were  in  Eng- 
land— his  last  letter  had  been  from  the 
Far  East — and  especially  if  he  were  com- 
ing here.  There  were  times,  as  she  re- 
minded herself,  when  she  was  continually 
seeing  him  ;  out  of  every  crowd,  suddenly 
his  tall  form  would  seem  to  emerge ;  in 
the  loneliness  of  quiet  places,  as  by  mira- 
cle he  would  seem  to  be  where  a  moment 
ago  she  knew  there  was  no  one.  Then  a 
sense  of  separation  would  intervene,  and 
for  days  she  would  be  given  over  to  the 
belief  that  she  was  never  to  see  him  again. 
To-night  was  doubtless  just  one  of  the 
times  when,  for  no  reason  that  she  could 
understand,  he  seemed  physically  near  to 
her. 

She    was    standing  very   still   in   the 
shadow  of  an  ivy-grown  pillar,  looking 
up  at  the  Pole  star  and  wondering  if  he  in 
[98] 


The  Old  World  and  the  King 

his  wanderings  might  not  be  looking  at 
it  too,  when  a  man's  voice  close  beside 
her  made  her  jump.  It  was  an  unfamiliar 
voice.  "  Star-gazing  ?  "  it  said,  pleas- 
antly. She  turned,  and  recognized  the 
King. 

"  Yes,  Your  Majesty,"  she  answered. 
At  first  she  thought  she  was  going  to  be 
frightened.  Then  she  remembered  the 
Secret,  and  before  she  knew  it  she  was 
deep  in  conversation  with  the  King. 

As  she  talked,  a  puzzled  expression  she 
could  not  see  came  into  the  King's  face. 
He  had  a  wonderful  memory  for  names, 
a  memory  which  seldom  failed  him  ;  but 
he  couldn't  place  this  girl.  And  it  was 
dark,  too,  so  he  couldn't  see  her.  But  he 
liked  to  hear  her  talk.  She  had  that  rare 
thing,  in  his  experience,  a  fresh,  sweet 
view-point.  The  bloom  of  enchantment 
was  still  on  life  for  her,  and  as  he  drew 
[99] 


Everybody  's  Lonesome 

her  out,  he  found  that  she  was  refreshing 
him  as  nothing  had  done  for  a  weary 
while. 

Then,  kingly  obligation  called  him  in- 
doors to  join  the  throng  whose  everlast- 
ing sameness  palled  on  him  almost  unen- 
durably.  Something  he  said  made  Mary 
Alice  feel  this — made  her  see,  as  in  a  flash, 
a  girl  who  had  gone  home,  once,  from  a 
party  and  wept  because  life  was  so  dull. 
She  was  sorry  for  the  King ! 

"  I  seldom  forget  a  name,"  he  said, 
"  but  I — before  we  go  in,  won't  you  please 
remind  me  of  yours  ?  " 

Mary  Alice  laughed.  "Your  Majesty 
has  never  heard  my  name,"  she  said, 
"  and  I  can't  go  in  ;  I'm  not  of  the  party." 
And  she  explained. 

"  I  see,"  he  said.  "  I  shall  have  to 
thank  the  Duchess.  I  have  had  a  most 

refreshing  quarter  of  an  hour." 
ioo  1 


The  Old  W^orld  and  the  King 

"  I'm  glad,"  said  Mary  Alice,  simply. 
"  I  felt  afraid,  at  first — as  nearly  every- 
body does,  I  suppose.  And  then  I 
thought  how  dreadful  that  must  be — to 
have  every  one  afraid  of  you,  when 
you're  really  a  very  nice,  gentle  person 
— I  mean !  Well,  I  guess  Your  Maj- 
esty knows  what  I  mean.  And  then  I 
remembered  my  Secret " 

"Secret?" 

And  so,  of  course,  she  had  to  tell.  It 
was  rather  a  long  story,  hurry  as  she 
would,  because  the  King  interrupted 
with  so  many  questions.  But  she 
wouldn't  tell  what  the  Secret  was  until 
"  the  very  last  thing." 

"  Um,"  said  the  King,  when  she  had 
finally  divulged  it.  That  was  all  he  said  ; 
but  the  way  he  said  it  made  Mary  Alice 
know  that  the  Secret  was  right. 

HOI] 


XI 

A  MEETING  AND  A  PARTING 

THE  next  day  was  full  of  activities 
which  kept  the  house  guests  far  afield. 
But  Mary  Alice  had  an  exciting  day  at 
home ;  for  the  King  had  spoken  to  the 
Duchess  about  her  and  asked  to  have  her 
presented  to  him  that  evening. 

The  Duke  and  Duchess  had  spent  a 
fortune  on  the  entertainment  of  their 
King;  had  provided  for  his  beguiling 
every  costly  diversion  that  could  be 
thought  of.  But  they  had  not  been  able 
to  give  him  anything  new,  and  they  felt 
that  he  was  enduring  the  visit  amiably 
rather  than  actually  enjoying  it.  It  re- 
mained, apparently,  for  the  Girl  from 

Nowhere  to  give  him  real  pleasure. 
[102] 


found  herself  looking  into  eyes  that  smiled  as  with 
an  old  friendliness." 
(Page  103) 


A  Meeting  and  a  Parting 

So  the  Duchess — secretly  sympathetic 
— left  orders  with  her  French  maid  that 
Mary  Alice  was  to  be  made  ready  to 
see  the  King. 

Mary  Alice  chose  the  simplest  thing 
that  rigorous  French  maid  would  allow 
and  kept  as  close  as  possible  to  her  own 
individual  and  unpretending  style.  But 
even  then,  she  was  a  pretty  resplendent 
young  person  as  she  stole  timidly  down 
to  find  the  Duchess  and  be  presented  to 
the  King. 

The  guests  were  assembled  in  the 
great  drawing-room,  and  Mary  Alice 
was  frightened  almost  to  death  when 
she  saw  the  splendour  of  the  scene  and 
realized  what  part  she  had  to  play  in  it. 

Then,  in  a  daze,  she  was  swept  forward 
and  presented,  and  found  herself  look- 
ing into  eyes  that  smiled  as  with  an  old 
friendliness.  So  she  smiled  back  again, 


Everybody  's  Lonesome 

and  soon  forgot  the  onlookers,  answering 
His  Majesty's  kindly  questions. 

He  turned  from  her,  presently,  to  speak 
to  some  one  else,  and  Mary  Alice  caught 
sight  then  of  a  face  she  knew.  For  an 
instant,  she  stood  staring.  For  an  in- 
stant, he  stood  staring  back,  as  unbeliev- 
ing as  she. 

Then,  "You  seem  to  be  on  friendly 
terms  with  His  Majesty,"  he  said.  "  Have 
you  showed  him  how  to  play  the  game, 
too?" 

"  No,"  Mary  Alice  answered,  "  but 
I've  told  him  the  Secret." 

As  soon  as  they  could,  they  escaped — 
those  two — out  on  to  the  terrace  where 
the  stars  were  shining  thickly  overhead. 

"  On  one  of  those — those  times  in  New 
York  when  we  talked  together,"  he  said, 

"  you  told  me  that  when  something  very 
[104] 


A  Meeting  and  a  Parting 

marvellous  had  happened  to  you  and 
you  couldn't  believe  you  were  awake, 
that  it  was  really  true,  you  asked  your 
Godmother  to  pinch  you.  It  —  er, 
wouldn't  be  at  all  proper  for  me  to 
ask  you  to  please  pinch  me.  But  if 
you  know  any  perfectly  proper  equiva- 
lent, I  wish  you'd  do  it." 

"I've  pinched  myself,"  she  returned, 
"  and  it  seems  I  am  awake.  So  I  judge 
you  must  be,  too." 

"  Then  how,  please ?  " 

And  she  told  him. 

"And  you  don't  know  yet  who  I  am?" 

"  No." 

So  he  told  her.  "  I  warned  you  it  was 
nothing  interesting,"  he  said ;  "  it  is  just 
my  work  that  people  are  interested  in.  I 
don't  belong  in  there,"  indicating  the 
great  house,  "any  more  than  you  do. 
They  like  me  for  a  novelty,  because  I've 


Everybody  9s  Lonesome 

dared  and  suffered ;  and  because,  as 
things  turned  out,  I  was  in  a  position  to 
do  what  they  are  pleased  to  call  a  great 
service  to  the  Empire.  I  wish  I  liked 
them  better — they  want  to  be  very  kind 
to  me,  and  I  was  born  of  them,  so  they 
like  me  the  better  for  that.  But  I've  been 
in  the  wilderness  too  much — I  can't  get 
used  to  these  strange  folk  at  home." 

"  I  used  to  think  I  couldn't  get  used  to 
strange  folk,"  Mary  Alice  murmured, 
"  but  I  seem  to  have  got  on  fairly  well 
for  a  girl  from  Nowhere." 

"Was  it  the  Secret?" 

She  nodded. 

"  When  may  I  know  ?  " 

"  I— I  can't  tell." 

"  You  told  the  King." 

"  He  seemed  to  need  it  so." 

"Don't  I  need  it?" 

"  I— I  can't  tell." 

[106] 


A  Meeting  and  a  Parting 

He  seemed  discouraged,  and  as  if  he 
did  not  know  what  next  to  say.  They 
strolled  in  silence  over  to  where  she  had 
been  standing  the  night;  before  when  the 
King  spoke  to  her.  From  within  the 
great  house  came  the  entrancingly  sweet 
song  of  a  world-famous  soprano  engaged 
to  pour  her  liquid  notes  before  the  King. 

Mary  Alice  stood  very  still,  drinking  it 
in.  When  it  ceased,  she  stole  a  look  up 
at  the  bronzed  face  beside  her ;  the  light 
from  a  window  in  her  far  wing  of  the 
house  fell  full  on  that  rugged  face,  and 
it  looked  very  stern  but  also  very  sad. 
Mary  Alice's  heart,  which  had  been  ex- 
ultant only  a  short  while  ago,  began 
suddenly — in  one  of  those  strange  revul- 
sions which  all  hearts  know — to  ache  in- 
definably. This  hour  would  probably  be 
like  those  other  brief  hours  in  which  he 
had  shared  her  life.  To-morrow,  or  next 
[  107] 


Everybody  9s  Lonesome 

day,  he  would  be  gone ;  and  forever  and 
forever  the  memory  of  these  moments  on 
the  terrace,  with  the  stars  overhead  and 
that  exquisite  song  in  their  ears,  would 
be  coming  back  to  taunt  her  unbearably. 

She  made  up  her  mind  that  before  he 
went  out  of  her  life  again,  she  would  tell 
him  the  Secret ;  so  that  at  least,  wherever 
he  went,  however  far  from  him  the  rest 
of  her  way  through  life  might  lie,  they 
would  always  have  that  thought  in  com- 
mon ;  and  whenever  it  came  to  help  him, 
as  it  must,  he  would  think  of  her. 

Timidly  she  laid  a  hand  upon  his  arm. 
He  had  been  far  away,  following  the  trail 
of  long,  long  thoughts,  and  her  touch  re- 
called him  sharply. 

"What  is  it?"  he  asked. 

"  I — I  want  to  tell  you  the  Secret." 

"  I  don't  think  I  want  to  know,"  he  an- 
swered, rather  shortly. 
[108] 


A  Meeting  and  a  Parting 

"Why— why "  Mary  Alice  fal- 
tered. Her  lips  quivered  and  her  eyes 
began  to  fill.  "  I — I  must  go  in,"  she 
said.  / 

He  put  out  a  hand  to  detain  her,  but 
either  she  did  not  see  it  in  the  dark,  or 
else  she  eluded  it ;  for  in  a  moment  she 
was  gone,  across  the  terrace  towards  the 
lighted  French  windows  of  the  rooms  of 
state. 

How  she  managed  to  get  through  those 
next  few  minutes  until  she  could  find  the 
Duchess  and  ask  to  be  excused,  Mary 
Alice  never  knew.  All  of  her  that  was 
capable  of  feeling  or  caring  about  any- 
thing seemed  to  have  left  this  part  of  her 
that  wore  the  Duchess's  lovely  white 
gown  and  scarf  of  silver  tissue,  and  to  be 
out  on  the  dark  terrace  under  the  pale 
star  beams,  with  a  tall  young  man  who 

spoke  bitterly.    This  girl  in  the  sheen  of 
[109] 


Everybody* s  Lonesome 

white  and  silver  to  whom  the  King  was 
speaking  kindly,  was  some  one  unreal 
and  ghostly  who  acted  like  a  real  live 
girl,  but  was  not. 

As  she  hurried  along  the  great  corridors 
towards  her  room  in  the  far  wing,  Mary 
Alice  felt  that  she  could  hardly  wait  to 
get  off  these  trappings  of  state ;  to  get 
back  to  her  old  simple  self  again  and  bury 
her  head  in  her  pillow  and  cry  and  cry. 
She  wished  with  all  her  heart  for  God- 
mother. But  most  of  all  she  was  sick 
for  home,  for  Mother,  and  the  unchanging 
sitting-room. 

"  He "  had  seemed  disappointed  to 

find  her  here.  And  she ?  Well! 

she  was  sorry  she  had  seen  him.  In 
New  York,  where  she  had  not  even  known 
his  name,  he  had  seemed  to  belong  to  her, 
in  a  way,  by  right  of  their  common 
sympathy  and  understanding.  Here, 
[HO] 


A  Meeting  and  a  Parting 

among  all  these  people  who  were  his 
people,  who  delighted  to  honour  him,  he 
seemed  completely  lost  to  her.  .  .  . 

After  a  weary  while,  Mary  Alice  got  up 
and  sat  by  the  window,  looking  across  to 
the  main  part  of  the  great  house  and 
wondering  which  of  the  darkened 
windows  was  his  and  if  he  had  dismissed 
her  easily  from  his  mind  and  gone  com- 
fortably to  sleep.  The  early  dawn  breeze 
was  blowing  from  the  sea  when  she  dozed 
into  a  brief,  dream-troubled  sleep. 


[in] 


XII 

AT  OCEAN'S  EDGE 

ONLY  the  gardeners  and  a  few  of  the 
house  servants  were  about  when  she  went 
down-stairs,  through  the  still  house  and 
out  on  to  the  terraces,  towards  the  sea. 
She  had  hung  the  white  and  silver  finery 
carefully  away,  glad  to  feel  so  far  divorced 
from  it  and  all  it  represented  as  she  did 
in  her  gown  of  unbleached  linen  crash 
which  she  and  Godmother  had  made. 

"  I'm  like  Cinderella,"  she  reminded 
herself  as  she  buttoned  the  crash  gown, 
"Godmother  and  all.  Only,  her  prince 
loved  her  when  he  saw  her  in  her  finery, 
and  mine  despised  me.  I  suppose  he 
thought  I  was  a  silly  little  '  climber ' 
trying  to  get  out  of  the  chimney-corner 

[112] 


At  Ocean' s  Edge 

where  I  belong.  But  I  think  he  owed  it 
to  me  to  let  me  explain." 

There  was  a  cove  on  the  shore  whose 
shelter  she  particularly  loved ;  and  she 
was  going  thither  now,  as  these  bitter 
reflections  filled  her  mind.  The  tide  was 
ebbing,  but  the  thin,  slowly-widening  line 
of  beach  was  wet  and  she  had  to  pick  her 
way  carefully.  She  was  so  mindful  of 
her  steps  and,  under  all  her  mindfulness, 
so  conscious  of  the  ache  in  her  heart,  that 
she  was  not  noticing  much  else  than  the 
way  to  pick  her  steps ;  and  she  had 
rounded  the  rocky  corner  of  the  cove  and 
was  far  into  her  favoured  little  nook, 
when  she  saw  that  it  was  occupied.  A 
man  sat  back  in  its  deepest  shelter,  look- 
ing out  to  sea.  He  started  when  he  saw 
her,  and  she  looked  back  as  if  calculating 
a  flight. 

"Please  don't  go,"  he  begged,  rising 


Everybody  's  Lonesome 

to  greet  her.  "  I  was  unpardonably  rude 
to  you  last  night  and  it  has  made  me 
very  wretched.  You  have  no  right  to 
pardon  me,  but  I  hope  you  won't  go 
away  without  letting  me  tell  you  how 
sorry  I  am." 

"  I — it  was  nothing — I  pardon  you — I 
think  I  understand,"  said  Mary  Alice, 
weakly. 

He  shook  his  head.  "  How  could  you 
— who  are  so  gentle — understand  ?  " 
Mary  Alice  looked  about  to  protest,  but 
he  silenced  her  with  a  commanding 
gesture.  "  I've  been  so  much  with 
savages  that  I've  grown  savage  in  my 
own  ways,  it  seems.  But — it  was  like 
this :  You  taught  me  a  game,  once.  It 
was  a  charming  game  and  I  was  glad  to 
learn.  But  we  could  play  it  only  twice, 
and  then  I  had  to  go  away.  And  after  I 
went  I — I  was  always  missing  the  game, 
[1*4] 


At  Ocean' s  Edge 

always  wanting  to  play  again.  At  what 
you  called  'candle-lightin'  time,'  wher- 
ever I  was — in  strange  drawing-rooms, 
on  rushing  express  trains,  on  ships  plow- 
ing the  seas,  sitting  about  camp-fires  in 
the  wilderness — I'd  always  seem  to  see 
that  little,  dim-lit  room  in  your  New 
York,  and  you  kneeling  beside  me  on 
the  hearth-rug,  with  the  firelight  on  your 
face  and  hair.  I've  always  been  a  lonely 
chap ;  but  after  that  I  was  lonelier  than 
ever ;  I  used  to  think  I  couldn't  bear  it. 
Then  last  night — how  shall  I  tell  you  how 
I  felt?  I've  comforted  myself,  before, 
with  the  dream  that  some  day  I  might 
get  back  to  New  York,  to  that  little  room 
at  candle-lightin'  time,  and  find  you  again, 
and  forget  everything  in  all  the  world  but 
that  you  were  there  and  I  was  with  you, 
kneeling  on  the  hearth-rug  and  making 
toast  for  tea.  And  when  I  saw  you,  all 


Everybody  ' s  Lonesome 

white  and  silver  glitter,  talking  to  the 
King — the  dream  was  gone.  There 
wasn't  any  girl  on  the  hearth-rug  in  New 
York  ;  there  was  only  another  girl  of  the 
kind  that  always  makes  me  feel  so 
strange,  so  ill  at  ease.  It  was  only  night 
before  last  that  I  learned  I  am  to  go 
away  again  directly,  to  the  Far  East,  for 
the  Government ;  and  I  was  so  happy, 
for  I  thought  I'd  go  the  westward  way 
and  see  you  again  in  New  York.  Then, 
suddenly,  I  realized  that  you  were  gone — 
not  merely  from  New  York,  but  from  the 
dream.  And  I  was  surprised  into  rude- 
ness. That's  all.  But  please  forgive 
me!" 

"  I  told  you  I  understood,"  said  Mary 
Alice,  "and  in  a  way  I  did — not  that  the 
— the  dream  as  you  call  it  meant  so 
much  to  you,  but  that  you  were  disap- 
pointed to  find  Cinderella  come  out  of 
[116] 


her  chimney  corner  and  talking  to  the 
King.  I  know  that  when  we  have  a 
person  definitely  placed  in  our  minds,  we 
don't  like  to  have  him  bob  up  suddenly 
in  quite  another  quarter  and  in  what 
seems  like  quite  another  character." 

"  Not  if  that  person  has  been  a  kind  of 
— of  lode-star  to  you,  and  you  have  been 
steering  your  course  by — by  her,"  he 
said. 

Mary  Alice  flushed.  "  Now  I  think 
you  ought  to  let  me  tell,"  she  began, 
with  downcast  eyes.  And  so  she  told  : 
how  she  had  come  there,  and  how  she 
had  stayed,  like  the  little  mouse  under 
the  Queen's  chair,  and  how  glad  she  was 
to  have  seen  from  a  distance  a  little  of 
this  splendour  and  great  society,  and  how 
gladder  still  to  hang  her  borrowed  white 
and  silver  away  and  be  done  with  it  and 
all  it  stood  for  and  go  back  to  her  gown 
[ 


Everybody  Js  Lonesome 

of  crash  and  her  chimney-corner  place  in 

life,  "  which  I  can  now  see,"  she  added 

i 

"  is  the  place  for  dreams  and  sweet  com- 
panionship." 

"And  when  I  get  back,  will  you  be 
there  ?  "  he  cried,  eagerly. 

"  When  you  get  back  I  will  be  there," 
she  promised. 

After  that  they  sat  and  talked  for  long 
and  long,  while  the  blue  sea  sparkled  in 
the  summer  morning  sun.  When,  at 
length,  they  rose  to  go,  there  was  a  light 
that  never  shone  on  land  or  sea  in  his 
face  and  in  hers.  There  had  been  no 
further  promises;  only  that  one :  "When 
you  get  back  I  will  be  there."  But  each 
heart  understood  the  other,  and  she  re 
joiced  to  wait  further  declaration  of  his 
love  until  he  could,  according  to  his 
tender  fancy,  make  it  to  her  as  in  his 
"  dream  come  true." 

[118] 


At  Ocean* s  Edge 

On  the  beach  as  they  strolled  back,  it 
was  her  eyes — shining  with  a  soft,  new 
radiance — that  first  caught  sight  of  some- 
thing ;  her  fancy  that  first  grasped  its 
significance.  "  Look  \"  she  cried.  In  a 
bowl-like  hollow  of  a  big  brown  rock,  the 
receding  tide  had  left  a  little  pool  of  sea- 
water.  "It's  left  behind— this  bit  of  the 
infinite,  unresting  sea  1 "  she  said.  "  Who 
knows  what  far,  far  shores  it's  come 
from?  And  now,  here  it  is,  and  the 
great  mother-sea's  gone  off  and  left  it." 

He  smiled  tenderly  at  her  sweet  whimsy. 
"The  great  mother-sea  will  come  back 
for  it  at  sundown,"  he  reminded  her. 

"Yes — yes" — perhaps  it  was  the  com- 
ing 'separation  between  the  two  that 
made  her  voice  quaver  so  sympathetic- 
ally— "the  Infinite  always  comes  back 
for  us.  But  we  don't  always  remember 
that  it  will !  This  is  such  a  little  bit  of 


Everybody  9s  Lonesome 

the  great  sea.  Maybe  it  never  was  left 
alone  before ;  maybe  it  doesn't  know  how 
surely  the  waters  that  left  it  behind  will 
come  back  for  it  this  evening.  Maybe 
it's — it's  lonesome.  I — I  think  I  know 
how  it  feels." 

"  And  I,"  he  said. 

"  Next  time  you  feel  that  way  will  you 
remember  this  brown  rock  and  the  tide 
that  is  so  surely  coming  back  to- 
night ? "  she  asked. 

"  Indeed  I  will,"  he  told  her. 

"  And  so  will  I,"  she  went  on.  "  And 
I'll  try  to  remember,  too,  that  perhaps  it 
was  put  here  for  us  to  see  and  think 
of  when  we  need  encouragement — just 
as,  I  dare  say,  we  are  left  behind,  some- 
times, so  that  other  lonely  folk  may  see 

us  and  be  reminded  that "  She 

stopped. 

"That  what?"  he  asked. 
[120] 


At   Ocean" s  Edge 

"Why!"  she  cried,  "it's  the  Secret! 
The  more  you  live,  the  more  everything 
helps  you  to  believe  the  Secret  and  to 
feel  the  brotherhood  it  brings." 

He  looked  guilty.  "  I  don't  deserve  to 
know  the  Secret,"  he  said,  "after  last 
night.  But " 

"  But  I  am  going  to  tell  you,"  she  de- 
clared, "so  when  you're  far  away  from 
what  you  love  most,  or  when  you're  with 
people  you  think  are  different  from  you 
and  do  not  understand,  you  can  remem- 
ber  " 

"  Yes?"  eagerly. 

"  Just  remember — and  you've  no  idea 
how  it  helps  until  you've  tried — that 
everybody  's  lonesome.  That's  the  Secret." 


[121] 


A     000120056 


